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For the 2008 election I have (another) new blog. I’ve finally kind of got the feel for the content of each of my blogs, so hopefully that will lead to me posting more in all of them.
Absentee Ballot: 2008 From the Expat Perspective is pretty much exactly as it sounds. Following the 2008 election is something of a challenge when you are relying entirely on the internet to keep you informed, and it comes with its own set of pitfalls such as an over-reliance on alternative media that could leave you completely out of touch with the opinion of average Americans. Or so thinks this DailyKos reader… It’s a group blog that is ideally supposed to cover a variety of locations, situations, ages and political perspectives, but so far it is just my friend Jenna and I. We’re studying the same thing at the same university and we both like (to different degrees) the same 2 candidates. Hopefully we’ll expand our writers over time.
Flying (By the Seat of My Pants) is the study abroad, pretty pictures and travel and non-political musings on being away from the homeland blog. Clearly it is not what I originally intended in terms of recounting my every breath, but sheesh people, I can’t handle that!
Nerdgasms is the general interest blog; it’s much like my LJ except it’s for public consumption. It’s definitely my fave.
OK. Wow, this entry might be a doozy but I’m going to have to try and condense events as much as possible because I’m unsure that I’m ever going to have time for in-depth entries ever again! My schedule is frightening me that much.
I left off with me taking a taxi to St Pancras to get the train to Nottingham. Luckily for me the hotel called a driver who was a friend of theirs instead of an official taxi driver, so I was allowed to set my own price for the ride. The internet had informed me the usual price for this run was around £26, but I got away with paying £20. This is still a ridiculous price, but there you have it. I was one of the first people on my train so I managed to have a place to store my copious belongings. Late-boarders were not as lucky since there’s barely any storage space on Midland Mainline trains. This later proved to be a huge problem when it was Rebecca and I boarding in the middle of the train’s run from Nottingham to Leicester with 4 huge bags.
I met Rebecca at the Nottingham train station and we took (another) cab to her friend Lonnie’s apartment. Lonnie, who was someone I only knew about previously as Rebecca’s “heavy metal Pony friend,” was absolutely lovely and a really great hostess. While in Nottingham I got to see pretty much all the tourist attractions they’ve got, including Nottingham Castle (with its snazzy new exhibit about the Robin Hood BBC series. Unsurprisingly a terrible exhibit to accompany a terrible show! Although at least the terrible show is more entertaining than the terrible exhibit) and “the oldest pub in Britain,” Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem Inn. Later that night I got to meet some of Rebecca’s friends, including Hugh Laurie Part II.
The next day we futzed around until it was time to catch our train to Leicester. Another friend of Rebecca’s picked us up at the station and gave us a place to crash for the night. In the morning we walked all of the luggage several blocks to my dorm. It really wasn’t terribly far, but it seemed pretty far with all that junk in tow!
I’ll post more on aesthetic impressions another time, when I’ve got some accompanying pictures. All-in-all Nixon Court (my dorm) is better than I anticipated. Of course there are very few people on my course who live nearby, so that’s a bummer, but the rooms are nice enough. I don’t have a very social hall (another bummer) but I’m going to do something very revolutionary and attempt not to talk too much about people on this (very unlocked) blog because that always comes back to haunt me.
For the W&M readers amongst you I’ll give you a sense of where I’m living. I’m about as far away from the main campus as I was living at Ludwell, but sadly there’s no bus for the rainy days. My department is located a bit away from the main campus in an old building that probably used to be a private home or, dare I say, apartment? Oh College Apartments… So, basically, this is a very familiar living and campus situation!
I went to International Student Orientation, which was basically a waste of a week. The sessions were boring and only tangentially relevant, simply reiterating the (admittedly scattered) information off the website. I did meet some people from my course though, so that was nice. (And even though I only have good things to say about them I’m still cutting off here, as I endeavor not to talk about them!)
This week we had yet another registration, which consisted of getting our handbook and Study Guide. It contains the information about who is teaching each module, unit, session or tutorial. The timetable for when each of these sessions meet is found on Blackboard (oh, how I didn’t miss Blackboard!) and it’s a truly complex and confusing thing. Each session is marked with initials and group names indicating who has to attend it, so I went through and marked all my sessions. I’m a #, which indicates Museum Studies (as opposed to Art Museum & Gallery Studies), as well as in groups B, 2, Warrington, Lundy and Jupiter. So now we know who’s teaching each session and when they meet, but what do we have to do for each one? To figure that out you need to go into each professor’s folder on Blackboard and find the document that corresponds with the topic they’re teaching on each day. Your readings and assignments are in there! However, each professor does it a bit differently so it’s not really uniform.
So a lot of cross-referencing and information to synthesize even before you get to the information you’re learning! I’m very anal about to-do lists and schedules so I’m not sure how this is going to work out just yet. I think I’m going to try making myself a spreadsheet with meeting times and readings etc all in it. But there’s already reading to be done! Oy vey.
This wasn’t meant to be a complaint-filled entry by any means! I’m enjoying myself and the course looks fascinating. My professors seem brilliant and entertaining and I can’t wait to get started. I just wish I could mentally organize instead of having to do it all visually 
This is pretty much a placeholder entry, so don’t piddle yourself in excitement just yet.
Even though I have very little to say at the moment, still being stuck in Staten Island (yes, we have a landfill. Yes, you can see it from space. No, I cannot smell it from my house.) for another three weeks or so, this might be a good time to introduce myself and this blog.
First, the basics: Kirsten. 23. From New York. Went to the College of William & Mary in Virgina for undergrad, and majored in History and American Studies. Worked for a year. Going to grad school for Museum Studies. OK, go!
Because I’m such an Anglophile (also: Europhile, but tragically monolingual) I’ll be going to the UK to earn my MA. Actually, I’m going because the University of Leicester has such a renown Museum Studies program. And because I’m an Anglophile. And because a one-year program is a better option for me financially, even after getting brutalized by the exchange rate.
I’ve had plans to go for a while. Still, I didn’t start soliciting references until about March. And then I didn’t apply until May. And I’ve just filed my financial aid and visa paperwork in the past week. And I sent off my housing form today. Hence the “flying by the seat of my pants”-ness of it all.
I have never started so many sentences with “and” in my entire life.
This blog is going to be my attempt to document my year abroad narratively. I’m not very good at narrative entries, so it will be something of a writing exercise as well. Mostly it’s for people from home to keep track of what I’m doing so I don’t have to clog people’s inboxes with updates.
