K, so...

A week and a half ago, the reception for my program took place.  It was at 4 in the afternoon.
I left the hostel at 3:20, got to campus... and got horribly lost.

I eventually found the room of the reception in the geography department, buried in the maze that is the arts and sciences building.  With bloody seeping blisters on both heels!  I blustered in, 20 minutes late and very distraught.

And was handed a glass of wine.

3 glasses of wine and 2 pints of bulmers later, I was discussing the education systems of Ireland and the US with my classmates and a professor.  Good times.  

The next day, I moved into my house:

The back yard is even better

Lovely living room

My room!  That painting has been replaced...

Yay!!!  I love it :)  I have one housemate at the moment and a second one is moving in tomorrow, plus there's Morgan, the boxer/collie mix who I get to give hugs whenever I want and he doesn't think I'm weird.  That's why dogs are the best.

The first week of classes went well, although I did manage to get lost... again... even though my class was in the very same room as the reception.  I'm smart like that.  Turns out that only 9 hours of classroom time and 3 classes a week doesn't mean much, as this week I was assigned an average of 90 pages of reading per class, plus a written reaction to each set of readings.  Not exactly hard, but very time consuming.  I am trying my best not to procrastinate.  The first week we had readings and I ended up being up most of Tuesday and Wednesday night to do them, and that's not how I want to live the next year.  So I have decided that a job is not going to happen, especially if I want time to travel.  And I do!  So that just leaves the question of money, and the answer is a loan.  A big loan.  Yayyyy.  I am going to Oktoberfest in a couple of weeks, then I think I'll be going hiking and climbing in Scotland with the mountaineering club, then Chris comes to visit!  So it's going to be a busy/awesome month.

Our wi-fi will (hopefully) be set up on Wednesday, so I will probably update this again around then.  In the meantime, I'm going to have fun!  I mean, read about maps...