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This week has been surprisingly typical for coming off of a week long holiday.

Saturday
Today I flew home. As soon as I got my stuff into my room, I went to the library. Then I worked on revising my essay for a little while before ordering food on Tesco’s website to be delivered on Sunday.

Sunday
Today I had my food delivered. It’s really convenient not having to carry my food clear across town (literally). After my food was delivered, I did laundry which is not fun. Afterwards I finished my essay; I hope I did it write (see what I did there?).

Monday
It is so weird having to go to class after vacation. Other than that I don’t remember much about Monday.

Tuesday
Today after class I went to Fab Lab Sunderland for a tour. I wanted to volunteer but, was told that they are way too busy to look for volunteers right now and that if I pay my fees and prove that I actually know my stuff then they might pick me as a volunteer. This was really disappointing. They don’t even have a remote knowledge of electronics equipment as far as I could tell. They had soldering stations and oscilloscopes but, nothing else for electronics.

Wednesday
I don’t really remember what I did on Wednesday. I know that I stayed up watching Scorpion until 2:30 though.

Thursday
My only class for the day was canceled. I didn’t eat lunch until 15:00 today. Then I watched Scorpion all day and evening.

Friday
Today I went to Ryman’s and bought some extra-fine markers and two more fountain pens. Then I walked back to the flat stopping at Subway to pick up dinner. After dinner I watched some more Scorpion and finally caught up to where it’s at on TV.

Saturday
Today I was really lazy. I attempted to read a book on international law but, It was really boring and irrelevant. It was focused too much on the English standpoint of international law. I wish that they had American law books in the library. I also finally updated my blog which, I put off for an entire week.

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The adviser appointment that I scheduled the previous day was scheduled for 09:15, I showed up at the bus stop at 08:49 and, the bus should have arrived at 08:57. After waiting until 09:00, it became obvious that the bus had come early (The bus is never on time when you need it to be). I ended up walking to campus so that I would be on time. In my meeting, I had my adviser drop one of my classes and add both German and Spanish into my timetable for the full year. At the end of the meeting, he sent my module choices to the people that make the timetables for analysis. After this meeting, I went to CitySpace.

For fresher’s week, there was scheduled to be free haircuts and smoothies in CitySpace. This wasn’t scheduled to start for an hour so, I sat on the sofas until it was about time. I went to the room that this was in at 11:00 because, I wanted a free haircut. When I arrived I found out that they weren’t doing free haircuts which was fairly disappointing. From there, I went back to the Forster building where we had a mandatory study abroad scavenger hunt.

In the Forster building we were divided up into teams then sent out around Sunderland to find the answers to questions and get random objects. The hunt made us walk clear to one side of the city centre, then to the other side and, finally back to campus. In all, our route made a large triangle that took an hour and a half to complete. Surprisingly the team that I was second to complete the hunt. We were told to return at 15:00 to find out who had won the hunt. This gave me time to go back to the bank.

I walked to the bank from campus where the banker was able to open my account with no problems. When I went to cash my check however, the lady at the counter was grouchy that I didn’t cash it the day that I got it. It was all sorted out though and I rode the bus back to Clanny. When it was time to go back to campus, I had planned on riding the bus. The bus wasn’t on time again and I had to walk all the way back to campus for the second time that day.

On campus, we learned who had won the hunt and surprisingly it was my team. The prize was a chocolate bar the size of a gold bar. I was disappointed that I had walked all the way back to campus for about five minutes though. I went to the bus stop where I waited 30 minutes for the bus to arrive. Back at Clanny, I watched Netflix for a couple of hours.

I went downstairs as the plan had been to go to a roller disco and then a paint party on campus. Instead my flatmate was making cookies (she makes really good cookies). Around 18:30 we decided to go to Tesco’s for some grocery shopping. Tesco’s is like the Wal-Mart of the UK except a little smaller. After everyone checked out at Tesco’s, half of us took the groceries back to Clanny and the other half walked to a pub where we would meet up to watch the Rugby World Cup. When we arrived at the pub, we had to leave as my flatmate was wearing sweatpants that didn’t meet their dress code. We ended up going to CitySpace where they had the game on. One of my flatmates went and bought pizza while we were watching the game.

After the game ended, we left CitySpace to meet up with the flatmate that bought the pizza. We ate it on a sidewalk  near the city center. When we finished the pizza, we went back to Clanny where I went directly to bed.

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Today I woke up and went to campus for induction. In the morning session, we played an icebreaker game and registered with the university so that we would be current students. Then it was lunch time.
For lunch a group of us went to Greggs in the Bridges. I had a slice of cold barbecue chicken pizza and a bottle of water. All together, the meal only cost me £2.50. After lunch we went back for the afternoon session of induction.
In the afternoon session we heard from a police officer, a sports and, a health official about safety and well-being while in the UK. My flatmates and I were in a hurry to get out of this meeting to get to bowling though.
I had purchased a wristband earlier in the day that would allow me free access to fresher’s week activities. For bowling only the first 60 people got in for free. Because we were 30 minutes late getting to the bowling I expected to pay the £5 fee. Surprisingly the place was not busy at all and I got in free. Entrance also included a free drink. Everyone around me has a pint but, I just had a diet Pepsi. We bowled two games which was fun but, bowling shoes weren’t provided. I still managed two games over a hindered though. After the games we went to a pub for dinner.
Bar food in the UK isn’t very different from the US except for possibly the fish and chips. I ordered a BBQ hog Burger which was a hamburger with pulled pork on it. When the waiter brought out the food though, I received a hotdog. I decided it would be fine as it was huge like, over a foot long. After dinner we went back to the flat and I went to bed.

The date that my posts show that they were posted is the day that the post is about NOT the day that they were actually posted.

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I woke up at 06:30 after sleeping 12 hours. All day I watched Netflix and talked to family over Skype. In the mid-afternoon I finally got my phone all set up so that it would only cost me about 3 cents per minute to call home. If you want my number pm me on facebook. I stayed in my room almost all day not leaving until I was invited for cookies with my flatmates.

When I went downstairs for cookies, I met the rest of my flatmates. In total there is two girls from Canada, two guys from England, a girl from Lithuania, and lastly me the American. We sat around talking and, eating the amazing M&M cookies until around midnight when everyone decided it was getting late as we had to get up early for our first day of induction at the uni the next morning.