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Today marks my fifth week of being here. I’m getting really bad with titles for these blog posts as I get into a routine. I might go out of town this weekend to change it up.

Today, I got up at 13:00 and did laundry. After I finished doing laundry, I went to Ryman and bought the USB cable I needed for the printer. Afterwards, I went back to the flat and watched hours of Netflix. I also started to see how Battlestar Galactica bears a close resemblance to Blade Runner, the film we watched last week for film studies. I had my last pizza tonight for dinner and an now out of food. I should probably go grocery shopping sometime.

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Today I went to the bank to get change to do laundry. Next, I went to a place called falcon computers to buy a printer for the flat. When I was checking out, they wouldn’t take my US debit card since they claimed my signature doesn’t matchup the back of my card. I was like I can give you 50 different proofs of my identity (exaggeration but, I literally have at least 6 different student IDs now). The owner said that they don’t usually accept swipe cards and asked if I had a different form of payment. So I ended up having to use my UK debit. I probably won’t go back there again since I want to use my UK debit exclusively at the ATM. After I went back to Clanny, I tried setting up the printer to find it doesn’t even come with the USB cable that’s required.

I went upstairs and watched Netflix. After a while of this, I got bored and started looking for someplace to watch the Royals game. It wasn’t to hard to find a pub near me. I asked my flatmates on Facebook if they wanted to go but, nobody wanted to go with me so I went alone. At the pub, the England v. Albania game was on so I had to wait for it to be over. After it was over, there was another group of people watching rugby so I had to wait for it to be over. When they finally got ESPN on, the Toronto game was still on in their 14th inning. When I checked the royals score on my phone, I saw they were losing 4 to 2 so I decided not to wait. It was OK that I didn’t get to see the royals have though. They had live music and I talked to the pub owner who was sitting next to me for a while. The woodpecker cider was good and it was only £2.70 per pint, I had two. The best part though is that they know what country music is. One of the bartender’s favorite artists is Garth Brooks. They usually play country and a little bit of everything else during karaoke on Saturday nights so, I might go back for it sometime. After I left the pub, I went back to Clanny house and watched Netflix until bed. I kind of wish that I would’ve waited for the royals game since they ended up winning.

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Today, I didn’t have any classes until 16:30. Around 13:00, I went to the scuba shop and bought myself a scuba mask and snorkel. Finding one that fits right is surprisingly difficult. I still had too much time to spare so I went to Ryman Stationary to buy a pencil. The pencils in the UK are really expensive. I ended up buying a mechanical pencil that cost like £4.50 (cheapest I could find). Then I went back to campus and bought myself lunch and went to the library where I hung out for like 3 hours until I went to class. On the way home, I stopped at Aldi and bought food.

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Today I had my games technology class. The class is getting really pointless. For the lecture hour we learn about game theory and for the tutorial hour we do nothing. The teacher automatically expects us to figure out the UDK on hour own which is getting really frustrating. He doesn’t even know anything about it himself. I don’t know how in going to pass this class.

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Today I decided that I needed to do my homework. This week, I had six pages of Spanish and German due. I went to the library and studied for several hours. I had to walk since the bus system doens’t run on Sundays. In fact very little was open on the way to the library. I managed to finish Spanish before I quit. I left the main part of the library and bought myself a mocha then, I sat down on the couches and updated my blog. When I got up to get a napkin, I dropped my watch. After I updated my blog, I walked back to Clanny. Half way back I looked down at my watch to check the time only to remember I had dropped it earlier. I called the library as soon as I realized my mistake and asked them if it was still there. They checked and they put it in the lost and found for me. After this, I made a ham sandwich for dinner then watched some Netflix for a while.

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Today, I woke up early to go to Sunderland Scuba Centre. At the scuba store, I took my closed water 1 test and then went to the back to get a kit. One of the staff members was nice and drove me and my kit to the pool which was on the other side of town.

At the pool, we started by learning how to put our kit together then, we jumped in and put our masks on. Next, we learned to put our kits on which is kind of difficult considering how much it weighs and the fact that there are so many straps on it. After everyone got their kits on, we swam out to where the water was about 6 feet deep. Then we let the air out of our BCDs and sank to the bottom of the pool. Scuba isn’t quiet whatsoever when you’re underwater. The constant release of the bubbles from your regulator is really loud. We practiced clearing our masks, emergency procedure for if you’re out of air and, clearing our regulator. These were really difficult for me and I think that everyone thought that I was awful at it. I had to surface like 5 times while doing these exercises. Mostly because, my mask did not have a good seal. I think that I need to buy another one. After learning these essential skills we were allowed to swim around in the shallow end of the pool. A little while after this we were taken to the deep end of the pool where the water was 3m or approximately 9ft deep. The swimming around in the shallow end and deep end was much easier than the emergency exercises we did earlier because, I could keep my regulator in the entire time. When we left the deep end, we went back to the shallow end and removed our kits. It was time for the swimming test. The swimming test consisted of eight lengths of the pool followed directly by 10 minutes of floating or treading water. I mostly floated on my back kicking to move for the swimming portion as it didn’t require much to float. I just floated on my back for the floating/treading water portion which was really easy. When everyone completed their tests, we learned to skin dive. Skin diving is basically when you have a mask and a snorkel and you dive down and come back up for breath without bringing your head out of the water by using the snorkel. It took me a while to figure out that you’re allowed to hold your breath as long as you aren’t breathing compressed air below the surface. The #1 rule of scuba is do not hold your breath because, just a few feet of vertical movement while holding your breath can burst your sinuses, lungs, ears, or any other air pockets that you may have. I was able to skin dive easily after I figured out that I can hold my breath if the air is from the surface. After skin diving, it was time to head back to the Scuba Centre. I checked in my equipment then headed back to Clanny House.

Back at Clanny House I did laundry and finished just in time to leave for the last bus to the city centre to see the Martian with one of my flatmates. Of course, the bus never showed up as I’ve found to be typical. We instead walked to the city centre where we ate at Louie Louie which is a world buffet. It cost me 10 and a half quid with a coupon for 2 pounds off. It was not worth the price at all. For as much a I payed I could have eaten at the much better tasting golden corral back home twice. I learned my lesson and will probably not return there again. After dinner, we went to the movie theater and bought our tickets. The box office was closed so we had to use the automated machines which, were really cool. The theater lets you pick your assigned seat in the system and, there are even private suites at the back of the theater. When we went to go into the movie, we found that there was still another movie in that theater. We were only there 15 minutes early too. When we got to go into the theater, there was movie scores playing but, no commercials on the screen like in the States. The commercials started at 20:30 exact, yes I mean commercials like you would see on TV not trailers. Mixed in with the commercials there were a few trailers the best being for 007 Spectre which comes out on Christmas day. After 30 minutes of commercials, the movie started. It was a good movie but, it was no where near as good as the book. The movie is never as good as the book though since you can fit more detail into a book than a movie. Afterwards we walked back to Clanny. There’s also a casino by the movie theater so I might go play poker sometime (legal age here is 18 for everything).

Back at Clanny House, I posted the blog posts that I had sitting around and then went to bed. It was a long but, fun day.

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Today I didn’t have any classes so I went to town for school supplies. On the internet, I found an office supply store called Ryman Stationary near the city centre. I looked around on their site and found that they sell quality fountain pens too. I get overly excited for office supplies. I got on the bus and headed to the city center.

At Ryman, I found all the binders, paper and, sleeves that I will need for the semester. They also had Lamy Safari fountain pens at an excellent price. Only 16 pounds. In the US this translates to about $25. This same pen sells for $35 dollars in the States. Now, you see why I was so excited. When I got to the register, I found that with my NUS extra card that I would get 12.5% more off of the price. After leaving Ryman, I went to Primark to buy another towel to use at my scuba lesson on Saturday. Then I went to Barclays to get cash and change for the laundry machines back at Clanny.

After leaving Barclays, I went back to Clanny where I watched a few episodes of Battlestar before I went to bed.

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Today I got up and left for the City campus. When I arrived I walked another ten minutes until I arrived at Sunderland scuba centre. Last time O visited, they didn’t have the materials that I needed in stock. This time they did so I picked them up and went back to campus where I it lunch at Gregg’s. After lunch around 12:45, I read until my German class which was at 16:30. I almost finished the book (22 pages from the end) during this period.

German is hard, they have really word pronunciations for everything. I don’t really like the class so far but, it is one of the few things that in taking here that will supply toward my degree back home.

After German, I walked back to Clanny stopping at Aldi for food so that I would not have to eat another bowl of spaghetti. After eating some lunch meat sandwiches, I finished reading my book. I hope when I see the movie it’s as good as the book.