Birthday in London

Well the last week (almost two weeks) have been very busy. We have had two field trips for uni, I went to London for 4 days for my birthday, then the continual essays, hockey practise etc.

Our first field trip was to Duxford, it is the large storage collection for the IWM. So it has lots of planes and several tanks, big guns etc. It is placed on an airbase that was active from WW1 until the 1960s. There are many private collectors who house their planes there as well as the museum collection, so one of the attractions is the chance to see planes flying. THey have mock battles and lots of airshows during the year, so it is really active. The collection was very impressive but they had very little interpretation of the planes. They relied on the 'wow' factor a lot. Not hard with that sort of collection. Most in the class agreed that the land warfare display was the most interesting because it had better interpretation and information for visitors. If the day wasn't so cold i would have enjoyed it more. It is definately a warm weather museum as so much is outside or walking between hangars.

The timetable was very good to me this last week, giving us a four day weekend, which just happened to be my birthday weekend. So i went to london on thursday night to see a friend from australia who was flying home the next morning for a short visit. It was great to catch up with Kris and Mike again, i haven't seen them for almost a year. The next day i managed to avoid the rain and get into london proper for lots of museum visits. The day was a little more eventful than i had anticipated. on arriving at Green Park Station to drop some stuff off with Richard, I encountered a protest march by 'Fathers for Justice' which was very noisy and spilled onto the pavement. However i fought my way through, dropped my bag with richard and then went to the National Gallery and the Portrait gallery. Loved them. The portrait gallery has an amazing portrait of Judi Dench. I sat in front of it for a while, just taking it in. It is very large and mostly white with her face the most expressive i have seen in a portrait for a while. Quite wonderful.

After some time in those two i went to the science museum. I really enjoyed it when i was there last year, so wanted to see it again. they have finished most of the restoration and expansion work they were doing last time i was there, and it is almost a new museum. still wonderful. However just as i was settling in for a visit for the rest of the afternoon the museum was evacuated. A real London experience! No one seemed to know what was happening, except we were told to stay away from the front of the museum and police with guns suddenly popped up everywhere. I was waiting to see if it was likely to reopen, when i saw a rather comical moment. A group of police in SWAT style uniforms came charging down one of the side roads to Exhibition Road, stopped and had a hurried conversation about which way they were meant to go. Some broke off and ran right, were called back and then the whole group hurried off to the right. still muttering about which entrance it was. myself and one or two other people standing round had a bit of a chuckle. As it didn't look likely to reopen, and once again i was cold, i spent the rest of the afternoon in the Natural History Museum.

Saturday was a wonderfully lazy day. Richard made me a chocolate birthday cake, and we had a very nice birthday dinner.








On Sunday Richard, Hillary and I went for lunch with Charlie and Harriet. It was quite a long lunch, and very nice. I hadn't seen charlie for a few years, so it was wonderful to catch up with him again, and meet harriet. Hopefully i will get to see both of them more over this next year. After lunch RIchard took me to the Australia Shop, so that i could get some more chocolate, specifically tim-tams and milo bars. Mum sent me several packs of tim-tam balls for my birthday, so with them plus the pack i bought at the australia shop i will hopefully be right until christmas. I hope so because the pack from the australia shop would have to be the most expensive tim-tams around. richard once again insisted on spoiling me though, so i didn't actually pay for them.

This week there was a field trip to a museum in Norfolk, Roots of Norfolk. It was a very early start, and after many late nights in london i wasn't very awake. The museum was interesting, they had a farm where they bred rare breeds as part of the programme. We did a tractor trip around the farm, that was fun. I did have to explain to a few friends what the connotations of the name were to an australian. even without that, the name isn't very good and they are thinking of changing the name apparently. They had a really interesting idea at the museum, where most of their smaller objects were put on open storage, displayed in numerous, specially designed cabinets, in one room, with almost no interpretation. Apparently they have developed this in response to criticisms about not putting enough of the collection on public view. They say it changes quite a bit as pieces are borrowed, taken out for research / conservation etc. An interesting concept, but i wonder how many people actually stop to look beyond a cursory glance.

I imagine that is enough about museums for any posting. sorry, it seems to be most of what i have done this week. I have two hockey games this weekend, plus a halloween party, so i am glad that next week we don't have many lectures. It is meant to be used to do lots of work on our essays. We'll see what happens.

There goes week two

Again, it is slightly worrying to realise that my second week in leicester is finished.

This week has been a little busier than last week. I started hockey training, played my first match, joined a choir and finished off my first essay. All this activity means that I am most definitely settling in, and starting to resume normal behaviour - doing more things than most sane people.

I have joined the Leicester Ladies Hockey Club. I am currently in the 3rd team, but there is a possibility of playing some matches for the 2nd grade. The grades are quite a way apart in competition terms, and it shows in their training. I hope to be able to train with the 2nds on occasions as they train with more intensity than the 3rds. However my team is very nice, quite young, and very good. We won our match on Saturday 2-0. The structure of play is quite different to what I am used to, so it will take me a while to feel comfortable with it, but I played reasonably well, lack of fitness was the main problem.

I have also joined the university singers. They are a little more advanced than the general choir and do a few more concerts. We have a concert late next month, so are working on a couple of Handel pieces for that. Most of the group are quite a bit older, despite it being a uni group, but it will be fun. I am really looking forward to being part of a good choir again.

Lectures this week were all interesting, but I won't bore you with the details. We had one of three tutorials led by PhD students. For this first one we have a 1,000 word essay to write. It isn't marked, but instead the PhD students comment on it so that we have an idea of how to improve our writing before our first major essay. The department is very strict about word limits, we are not allowed to go over by even 1 word. So my essay is 995 words, all ready to hand in tomorrow. I don't think I have finished something two days before the deadline since first year, usually I am racing the clock. I doubt this will continue.

The frustrations of being an international student and dealing with inane paperwork continue. On Friday I was told by the bank that because I was an Australian they could not open an international student account for me! Apparently there is some Australian law that only this branch of Nat West know about, that prevents Australians opening bank accounts in the UK. I was quite short with the account manager when he told me my application was being refused because of this, and when he offered the usual platitudes - I hope this hasn't inconvenienced you in any way - instead of being polite I told him the truth, that yes it was incredibly inconvenient and that I would be finding another bank who were happy to open an account for me. I can't believe that they are quoting some law that no one else seems to have heard of. Every other Australian student I know in the UK has opened a bank account without any problems. I thought UK banks were meant to be better than those in Australia.

As for getting out this week, Friday night the two other rotary scholars here at Leicester and I were taken to an exhibition opening of work by the local artist, David Weston (http://www.davidweston.co.uk/). He does stunning water colours and a few oils. If I had the right sort of money available I would have been very tempted. After viewing the exhibition we went for dinner at a little pub in Ashby Folville (I think that was it), a town north east of Leicester. Dinner was wonderful, I ate more than I should have and had a wonderful evening chatting to Michael Kellet (Rotarian), his wife and the other two scholars.

I am down to my last pack of tim-tams (sob) but I believe there is a parcel from mum on the way. I am really hoping that it has more. If not I will drop lots of loud hints, or buy some when I go to London this weekend. The next post should have some photos attached as I am actually getting out of Leicester in the next week.

That is really about it for this week. For those of you who have mentioned how long the posts are, don't worry they are going to get very short and very repetitive quite quickly. Each week will be variations on the same theme, uni, hockey, uni etc. Don't despair, I will eventually learn to be more concise. Take care, B

Week one done.

Yikes, it is scary to realise that i have just finished the first week of my course. The buildup to this has been so long, and so often i thought that it wouldn't happen. I must admit that when i first heard i had won the scholarship i thought there had to be a mistake. For about three months, everytime I received a letter from Rotary I was sure it would tell me that I hadn't actually got the scholarship. However here I am, doing the museum studies course.

The first week has been quite hectic. Not only have I had to try and organise study things, but so many administrative things as well. Registration for the uni, registration for the computers, registration for a student union card etc. We don't have student cards yet so we have to carry around our certificate of registration for access to the library. I was quite suprised to find that the library was not open to the public and that you had to prove you are a student to enter. It is a bit of a hassle until we get our cards, and borrowing is next to impossible. Hopefully we will get our cards late this week, or early next.

The lectures have been quite interesting, but it is worrying to realise that we are already 5 lectures into the first module. We have had a number of lectures by Simon Knell, the head of department. On Thursday he gave a really interesting lecture about the history of museum development. Rather than the traditional view of cabinets of curisosities to public museums he looked at the development of philosophical societies in Britain into county museums. He focussed on fossil collection and how the local museums in their own way supported all levels of society in 19th Century England through these societies. It was really interesting.

Friday was wonderful - Eilean Hooper-Greenhill lectured. This is the person who has practically written the bible on museum studies and learning in museums. Her text 'Museums and the shaping of Knowledge' is the first text given to most museum studies students. So to listen to her lecturing, and discussing her thoughts, ideas and research into post-modern learning in museums was just wonderful. It was also a really interesting lecture, with some fascinating insights into school children's learning experiences in museums. She discussed an indepth learning program in the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum and read the response from a girl of African Heritage to the slavery section of the program. The girl (16) discovered a new way of seeing herself and her abilities through this program. Stating that she should be trying harder to achieve to give back some of the pride taken from the black slaves. (I can't remember the exact quote, but that is the general feeling of it). I still get shivers thinking about that. It is things like that that make me so keen to work in museums.

The weekend has been quite relaxed. yesterday morning i went to watch some hockey matches being played by the club i am hoping to join. I watched some of their 2nd grade, and some of the 5th grade. If i play really well i might make the second grade team, but they play on sand turf and i think it will take me a few weeks to adjust to sand, after playing on water for so long. I hung around after and met some of the girls, they were really nice. i start training tomorrow night.

After the hockey i met another girl from the course in the city and we wandered around for a few hours. Nicola introduced me to a number of different shops. telling me which were cheap and nasty, which were cheap and good, and where you could get good bargins. It was great having someone who was happy to do that. I was able to relate them back to chains in Australia for reference. We wandered back to the hall as it was starting to rain. Nicola lives a few floors above me, also in a studio, so later in the evening i wandered up to her flat with some tim tams and we sat and half watched TV and chatted. It was a very pleasant way to spend the evening.

Today the sun came out! I was so excited. I haven't seen the sun in over a week, so the glimpse of it today was very nice. I can see why brits go a bit mad when they get to australia and seem to sunbake until they are crisped. I'm sure i will get used to it to some extent, but right now i miss regular sunlight.

Despite the sunny, but cold, weather i spent most of today indoors. We already have an essay due next week, so i spent my time at the library, then in my room studying for that. it isn't very long, only 1,000 words, and it isn't for marks, but i don't want to start the year procrastinating and leaving everything until the last minute. I'll try to set a good example for myself.

I still can't quite believe that one week is over already. I am sure that the weeks won't slow down, in fact they are likely to get faster. The good thing is with uni now getting into a bit of a pattern, a hockey club sorted out and a few friendships developing i am feeling much less lost. I am sure that there will still be things that throw me, times when i wish i was home, but hopefully once i create more of a life here those things won't cause problems for too long.

I have added some extra photos to the previous posting if you are interested. Sorry there are none for this posting. I will try and remember my camera a bit more this next week.

Leicester at Last

I'm very excited, I actually have an internet connection in my room at last. So now I can post all the things that have happened since I arrived in England two weeks ago.

28/09/05

I finally arrived in Leicester today. This journey started over two months ago when I packed up my life in Sydney and moved back to South Australia to spend some time with my family. I arrived in England about a week ago but rapidly left for a short visit to Stockholm. After all that I am now at Leicester University and trying to make my student accommodation feel somewhat like my room and my space. I have a few days of orientation for international students, then a Rotary Weekend in Derby, and then university starts properly.

I thought I should start this blog properly with a brief introduction of what I am doing in Leicester and how I got here. Those of my friends, family and acquaintances who already know this can let their eyes glaze over as they skim through this next paragraph, for those of you who only vaguely know what I am doing over the next year here is your chance to come to a more complete understanding.… I am studying for my Masters in Museum Studies at Leicester University in the UK. Why Leicester? Because it has some of the most innovative studies coming out of the department, is very well recognised internationally, and has links to so many museums and professional organizations that it really is the best place to study. I am here thanks to the amazing generosity of Rotary International. I was the very lucky recipient of an Ambassadorial Scholarship. This scholarship helps pay for the cost of studying overseas and also encourages all recipients to get involved in the community they are studying in, and to encourage better cross cultural understanding. I am really looking forward to a chance to get more involved in Rotary and also to tell lots of people about Australia– beyond the Kangaroos and the Opera House. I am really looking forward to this year.

Now that the introductory things are out of the way, I can get onto briefly describing the last week. I arrived in London on th22ndnd September, not too jet lagged as I was fortunate enough to receive an upgrade and traveleded from Sydney business class, the delights of frequent flyer points. I had a day in London before I went to Stockholm. I can'’t say that I did anything particularly interesting in that day, dropped my luggage off at my cousins and then went to the Academy of Arts. They were between exhibitions but the John Madejski Fine Rooms were open so I strolled through them for about an hour. I then sat in a park and read until my cousin had finished work.

On Friday I left London and went to Stockholm. Another cousin recently moved there and I had not been, so it seemed like the perfect excuse to spend a weekend. Stockholm is really beautiful. Being situated on a harbour there were times that I could have almost imagined myself back in Sydney, except the buildings are so much older and the living style is quite different. Instead of massive suburban sprawl and very little life beyond business in the city centre there were so many apartmentent buildings that the CBD didn't seem very well defined. I loved walking round the city, especially Gamla Stad (the old town) while it was very touristy, it was still so charming and vibrant that the amount of tourists didn'’t really detract from it.

While in Stockholm I visited the Vasamuseet and the Swedish Museum of Natural History. These were both quite amazing museums. The Vasamuseet in particular was quite stunning. It would be hard to have a bad museum with such an awesome centre piece. The Vasa was much bigger and more complete than I had imagined it would be. I have seen the remains of the Mary Rose in Portsmouth and the Batavia at the Shipwreck Museum in Perth (Australia) and was expecting the Vasa to be like them. Each of those ships are quite impressive, but they are only pieces of a ship and quite a bit of imagination is required to visualise them as a whole ship. The Vasa however is whole, she is able to sail by herself. Where new pieces were added, they have been done in a deliberately contrasting wood. But other than pieces of the masts and the upper deck, she was a complete ship when raised. It is incredible. The museum displays were very interesting, lots of interactives, and gave great supporting information to the ship. I was really impressed.



The Natural History museum was quite different, less accommodating to international tourists, which could be expected, but still very informative. The best room from my perspective as an international tourist was the room on the flora and fauna of Sweden. This is mainly because this was the only room that had the information panels in English as well as Swedish. The other rooms we went to looked really good, and thanks to my cousin acting as interpreter I was able to enjoy far more than I would have had I gone alone. The museums were very different in their presentation style and their format, but both were very enjoyable. (Sorry to those non museum folk who are getting really bored with the descriptions).

The final day in Sweden we wandered around some more of the islands and I went shopping for a kitsch and cheap souvenir. This required walking through the old town again, which was no hardship, and looking in all the tourist shops along there. I thought I wanted a viking, or perhaps something with an elk on it. There were some great choices, the viking salt and pepper shakers, an elk pattern tea-towel, more wooden viking dolls than could be imagined, and plenty of trolls. I ended up with a pair of socks with Vikings on them, and some plastic coasters with elks on them, so I satisfied both ideas, and while they are quite kitsch they are also quite practical. So a very good ending to a wonderful weekend.

The flight back from Sweden was memorable for the very heavy landing. I was reminded of a story my Grandpa told about a Battle of Britain veteran who at the end of the flight asked the captain if it was a landing or if the plane was shot down. I have never seen the airmasks fall out on landing before. But we arrived in one piece so that was good.

After a relaxed day in London yesterday, doing the washing, sorting myself out etc. I spent several hours today making my way from London to Leicester. The train here was only just over an hour which was nice, but getting from my cousin's to St Pancras was a bit more arduous. I had a bit more luggage than I could comfortably manage by myself, and to make matters worse, one of the wheels on my suitcase decided that today was a good day to break. So from the tube to St Pancras I need to stop quite regularly to readjust the wheel which was staying on by a very small bit of plastic, and as soon as the pull angle of the suitcase got too great it stopped functioning. However I made it in time for the train and got to my accommodation quite easily.

I am in a studio apartment here. It is not as roomy as I had hoped, but roomier than I had dreaded. The kitchen and bathrooms are off the study / bedroom but there are a few peculiarities that I think it will take me some time to work out. There are no extra power points in the kitchen, so the kettle and toaster have to be operated in the main room, and there is only one cupboard for all the crockery and food. I think one of my first trips once I have a free weekend will be to an IKEA or similar to get some drawers or such like for the kitchen. In fact I am building up quite a list of things that I need to get to make this place a little more comfortable. Essentials like crockery would be good. We had a trip to the supermarket tonight, after the welcome talk, and I looked for an instant meal that came in a bowl that could be reused as I have no crockery! That is really quite desperate, hopefully I will be able to rectify the situation tomorrow afternoon.

From my bedroom window I have a lovely view over a multi-storey carpark, and then out onto the train line. It isn't quite what I might have hoped for, but it is better than looking into another apartment block as I did in Sydney.

I am hoping to get my boxes and bedding which was sent separately tomorrow. It has arrived in Leicester I just need to organise to meet up with my Rotary Host who has it. As it is raining quite hard tonight I don't think I will go to the social function, instead I will continue reading and sorting my room out. The next few days promise to be busy, so I doubt I will have a chance to put an entry up before uni starts. I will let you know then how the hunt for kitchen essentials has gone and if I am able to cook meals at all.

Email me if you want any more information about anything in this post.


Rotary Link Weekend. 30th Sept to 2nd Oct. 2, 05

As a rotary scholar I had been told that there would be a weekend where all Rotary Scholars studying in the UK would be invited to get together and meet each other. I thought it sounded like a good idea and so when the invite to attend the link weekend arrived I was very keen to attend. I was lucky that the weekend was being held in Derby as it is only a half hour on the train from Leicester.

I must admit that after a fairly full on orientation program at Leicester I was not really very enthusiastic about the weekend. When I was getting ready to go on Friday I was frustrated about my room internet connection not working, feeling a little homesick and generally not looking forward to having to socialise with strangers for a whole weekend. However I got on the train and took the time on the train to relax, grab some sleep and try to get my head in the right space.

As the train pulled in to Derby station I realised that another scholar from Australia was travelling in the same carriage as me. We had our bags at opposite ends of the carriage so it wasn't until we got off that I managed to greet Galina. I was really pleased to see her as I had enjoyed meeting her at our outbound orientation day in Sydney and remembered her as someone who is very energetic and enthusiastic. Galina introduced me to another scholar she had met on the train and we all wandered off towards the Midlands Hotel together.
There were several other scholars at the hotel and after we had signed in and been told that we needed to wait for someone who would host us to arrive we grabbed tea / coffee / water and started chatting to some of the other scholars there. It was wonderful to realise how easy it could be to start chatting to people I had never met before. Because we all have the scholarship in common we could ask each other where we were studying, and what we were studying without a worry. The district had provided us each with name badges, so we could see where people came from. From the information given to us before we arrived I had noted that there were many more scholars from the USA and Japan than other places, and in the initial meeting I met several people from the US and Japan, but I also met scholars from Switzerland, Egypt and Germany. I didn't have to wait too long before my host for the weekend arrived and took me back to his place in Bingham, a village outside of Nottingham.

On the way back to Bingham we stopped to pick up a scholar from Taiwan who is studying in Nottingham and is being hosted for the year by Rob and Joan. On Friday night we had dinner with two other Rotary families and the scholars they were hosting for the weekend. I was very pleased to realise that the scholars they were hosting were people I had already met at Derby, so initial introductions had been done already.

The dinner was so much fun. The Rotarians obviously knew each other very well and got on really well, as the jokes did not stop all evening and I think the three scholars who did not speak English as their first language must have missed a quarter of the conversations at least. There were several moments of cultural misunderstanding, but all of them caused hilarity and enjoyment rather than any awkwardness. I think the tone for the evening was set in many ways by my host family continuing on the conversation we had in the car about the ways different cultures describe drinking too much. As an Aussie I contributed trashed and pissed as the polite expressions, but Gloria from Taiwan also picked up a few less polite sayings.

During the dinner I was given much friendly ribbing over the performance of the Aussies in both the cricket and the rugby, I felt it necessary to explain that without Australians running the cricket academy the English team wouldn't have nearly so many bright young stars.

I think the best moment of cultural misunderstanding occurred when one of the male hosts mentioned something about knocking a girl up in the morning. Cibelle, a scholar from America, and I were sure we had heard wrong but our looks of confusion and horror alerted our host to the fact that we were not aware of the second meaning of this expression. He was referring to knocking on a door as a wake up call. Very innocent, but not what the expression means to either Cibelle or myself.

Saturday morning was a wonderful chance to have a sleep in and a lazy start to the weekend. Rob insisted on feeding me a big breakfast as he has been told that we were not getting lunch on our afternoon activity, only afternoon tea.

As there were so many scholars in Derbyshire for the weekend we were allocated one of four activites for the afternoon, depending on where our hosts lived. The activity for scholars staying in the area I was, was a trip to Lincoln Cathedral and Castle. Again, as we gathered I was very pleased to see many other scholars I had met briefly on Friday afternoon. It was also good to see that Galina was in the same group. Lincoln castle holds one of the original copies of the Magna Carta, and while our guide was not very good, seeing this document, still in wonderful condition with legible writing was quite amazing. We also got a great view of the cathedral from the castle wall.



In the cathedral I somehow ended up in a slightly different group to the one I had toured the castle with, so I got to meet some other scholars. The tour of the cathedral was quite wonderful. In some ways it was disappointing that we didn'’t get to go up the tower, but I am also quite glad as I thought I might have had problems with the height. We were given a very good tour of the cathedral, and unlike the guide from the castle the guide in the cathedral knew that we were a group of international students and modified his talk for those who did not speak English as a first language. Gloria still said that she had trouble understanding much of the tour, but at least the guide made an effort.

Afternoon tea was in the chapter house of the cathedral. They have been filming "The Da Vinci Code"’ at Lincoln Cathedral and there was still evidence of the film around. In the wall panels of the chapter house were some amazing wall paintings. I was very impressed by them, until the guide explained that they were painted fabric and had been put into the wall panels for the film. They looked very real and it wasn't until you got really close to them that you could see the cuts in the fabric to make it fit the panels.



The 'Da Vinci Code' wall paintings.

Afternoon tea was very welcome by most scholars as by the time it was served we were all quite cold and hungry. Not everyone had been aware of the lack of lunch, so many were feeling the lack of food much worse than myself.

Saturday evening was a barn dance in a Victorian gothic hall. It was very loud, very silly and so much fun. While I didn'’t meet a large number of new scholars, I was able to make a better acquaintance with those I had met during the day, and through them meet a few new scholars. I managed to meet another scholar at Leicester, so that was wonderful and we had a good chat. I participated in a couple of dances, had fun watching the Morris Dancers, and even more fun watching other scholars and Rotarians attempt various dances. My host family left shortly after 11, and while I was really enjoying the evening I was also ready to leave as I was getting very tired.

Today we had an early start as we had to be in Derby by 10am for a morning briefing and then lunch before all heading back to our uni's. The briefing was not anything new, but it reinforced many things for us as scholars, and the presentations were all very short, so it did not get tedious. One of the speakers was a scholar who has just recently returned from a year at Sydney University, so I had a chance to chat to her over lunch and discuss our mutual love of Sydney. I travelled back on the train with the other scholar from Leicester, and we were back at the hall by 2:30.

Australian and New Zealand Scholars, with Jenny (just returned from Australia)



This evening has almost been a bit of a let down. After having such a great weekend, meeting so many people and feeling that I had made a lot of new friends, getting back into my room and having the evening to myself was quite lonely. The internet connection in my room still isn't working so I haven'’t been able to check my emails, and I wasn't able to waste time surfing, so I have been at a bit of a loose end all evening. It makes me realise how much I enjoy and need my extra activites. I am really looking forward to joining the hockey club and I really hope that training starts soon. This is especially the case as the packs of Tim-Tams that Mum sent are sitting in my fridge and are far too tempting.

I have a rotary meeting tomorrow night with my sponsor club, so at least I will be sociable then. Although being the first day of classes I'm not sure how awake I will be at the meeting.

I really hope to have my internet connection sorted out tomorrow so that I can post this, and so that I can start communicating with people beyond this city again. I am a little nervous about starting classes tomorrow, but I have already met several of the people on the course, so it won't be too bad. I have now managed to fill in time until a reasonable bed time hour, so I will finish off the tim-tam and head to bed. I will write again soon.


4th Oct

Well I still haven't got an internet connection to my room. I called the company yesterday and they said that there was a problem with one of the switches in the building, they were sending someone out to fix it but didn't know when. So they couldn't tell me when I might get an internet connection. It is really bugging me as I seem to be about the only one of those I know who are having this problem, and as we pay a standard internet rate, I will have to still pay the full £160 for the period, even though my connection has been so horribly delayed.

Another frustration is how few places around the city accept traveller's cheques. So far I have only found the train station will accept them. Unfortunately I am doing very little train travel. I am down to my last £30 cash, and hopefully that will last until I can get a bank account open. I just hope that the bank accepts traveller's cheques for the initial deposit and that there isn't a long wait for them to clear.

Freshers Fair (O'’Week) was on yesterday and today. I went and had a look at some of the clubs I wouldn't mind joining (choir, band, hockey). Unfortunately they all practise on the same days and at about the same times. Thanks to the nature of my course (postgrad not undergrad) I am unable to compete in the interuniversity sports competitions as those matches are held on Wednesday afternoons and I don't finish lectures until 4:30 - 5pm on Wednesdays. That being the case I am trying to find out if I am able to join one of the district hockey teams, and then perhaps I will look at joining the mixed hockey team at uni which is a little more social, and don't have regular matches. Leicester Ladies looks to be a really good, strong hockey team, with National players in their top grade. The problem is again lack of internet connection - I can't find out who to call about joining. Hopefully tomorrow I will get my login for the uni computers and I can then start communicating with the world again.

Today I also started investigating jobs and getting a national insurance number. Again the red tape and the complications are pointless and frustrating. I called about an NI number and was told that I could only be interviewed for the application for an NI number once I had proof that I was job seeking, so I needed interview letters from 2 employers, or a contract. However the recruitment agency at uni won't interview you until you have proof of an NI number or an application for an NI number. So round and round in circles I go.

I went shopping this afternoon. It took a lot longer than I expected because there were enough things that were different that I had to in some ways start again with working out what I wanted. I didn't have a very long list, I am still trying to work out what I can fit in my kitchen, and also waiting until I can get some drawers before I do a proper shop. A lot of the things I was after aren't stocked, or are different, it was a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. Things that I never really thought about like "Tuna tempters" and single snack pasta are quite different. Also I spent a good 15 minutes in the cereal aisle trying to work out which cereals are most like those I had at home, or whether I should be brave and just try something completely different. The worst bit however was when I went to buy laundry powder. They have two types - biological and non-biological. At first I thought it would be the difference between environmentally friendly or not. That wasn't the case, so then I tried to work out if it had anything to do with top or front loading machines. That didn't make sense either as both tablets and powder could be either. Finally I asked someone who was grabbing their powder what the difference was. It has to do with whether it has a bleaching agent (I think) added. Biological has this added, and is therefore a bit harder on clothes. The person I asked recommended non-biological, as it was gentler. So that is what I have. So much more complicated than it needed to be.

The great discovery of today was that my freezer is actually a bit bigger than I thought it was and I can fit small containers of ice-cream in there. That is one very happy discovery. I don't think I will be able to fit both ice-cream and frozen food, so I will have to work out if I am freezing meals or having dessert. I guess as it gets even colder I will be happy with custard for dessert and can then fit frozen food. Such trials!

We start lectures properly tomorrow afternoon, and from then on there is quite a busy timetable. Hopefully I will get time in the next two days to get into the bank again (with the proper uni letter this time) to open an account. Ideally I would love to have it happening by the weekend, but somehow I think this is being incredibly optimistic. However with internet access I just might be able to find out where I can change my travellers cheques for cash, and perhaps find a hockey club to join and then I will stop feeling so lost. I really need something to do and a way a keep busy. I am almost wondering if I should have chosen a shared dorm, instead of a single room. However I think that once I have got some activities to keep me busy, and developed a better social network I will be glad of my own space. If I was really conscientious I would be using this time to do some reading for the first core module - perhaps over the weekend.

I had my first Rotary meeting with my host club last night. It was a very formal night as it was their partners night. Apparently they only invite partners once or twice a year. The club is much bigger than Eastwood with about 85 members. My host counsellor is very nice, and had promised to take me to a Leicester tigers (Rugby union) game. One of his friends who was on the same table has said that he will take me to a Leicester City game. I'm looking forward to both of those.

There was a GSE team from Australia at the meeting last night. They were from district 9670, which covers from just south of Newcastle, west of Dubbo and up north past Lake Macquarie. It was quite nice to hear a number of Aussie accents and to be able to say G'day to someone and have it returned. Their presentation was a good mix of personal information and facts about the different regions in the district. It certainly gave me a few ideas for how to structure me presentation.

I really don't know when I will be able to post this, hopefully soon. I will write again when next things get me horribly frustrated, or perhaps when things start falling into place. It isn't all as bad as it might seem, and generally things are working out, so don't worry about me too much.