The end of a successful first week.

Yes, my children, it's time for another blog story from Auntie Sunshine! I should add a note here that several people have emailed me nagging for more updates. It's been THREE DAYS, people! I do (despite my jokes to the contrary) actually have other stuff to do, so I'm aiming for once a week, more if something interesting has happened. If you want more frequent and personal contact, you know how to hunt me down!

I'm yawning as I type - the toddler bed and I are at war and it's winning. Because it's so narrow, I nearly fell off twice...which is much less funny at 3am than it probably is to you. I'm hoping this is just a period of adjustment and that I will learn to sleep in a mummified state of rigidity, which will prevent said 3am bungee-bed dives from happening. Or I can just put some gymnast's mats on the floor to prevent any concussing.

Have gone appliance-crazy and am now somewhat up to speed with modern society. Got a used computer for £100 (about $225 Cdn), which is slower than molasses going uphill in January, but fits my highly limited student budget and allows me access to that great behemoth of usefulness, the Internet. I can't believe that we've only had the Internet for just over 15 years. I vaguely remember looking in an actual phone book for numbers, and occasionally, even an encyclopedia, but it's a dim recollection that must be my imagination. Also a curling iron (so that my golden perfection can be curly!) and a blender that doesn't seem to want to work, despite my urgings.

My supervisor met with us yesterday - me and the ONE OTHER PERSON IN MY PROGRAM. I'm exaggerating slightly - there's actually two. Three including me. There's an American from Georgia named Jason who is completely wordless until Star Trek comes up (and then just watch the morphing into a chatterbox!), and another guy from Luxembourg who hasn't made his grand entrance yet. Apparently, I have a whopping four hours of class a week, which strikes me as rather bizarre. I did triple that during my undergrad! This is slightly moderated by the enormous amounts of reading to do, but still. Class starts Monday with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. And about halfway through semester, we get to go on a field trip to Manchester to MEET TERRY PRATCHETT! Those of you who are sci-fi/fantasy fans will know how cool that is. He's one of the biggest authors out there.

Spent last night in a pub watching a friend's band and making acquaintance of actual British people (as opposed to the hodgepodge of Canadian/American/Indian/etc people in my residence building), and am about to run off and catch a train to Sheffield to visit my (enormously pregnant) friend Emma.

May the Force be with you. (Just keeping up with others in my program. It will pass)

NB Have just returned from Emma's and have been requested to amend the preceding passage. Please note that Ems is not enormously pregnant. She is apparently only moderately pregnant, although she's due in about two months and then the original description will be accurate. Emma's fabulous - and has a penchant for really disturbing British TV programs about people's lives gone horribly awry. When we first made each other's acquaintance, she would regale me with tales of feral wolf children raised in a cave, and people who rinsed their contact lenses with tap water and then had bacteria eat out their eyes. Sadly, we arrived home last night too late to catch the program on the man whose biceps exploded from too many steroids.