Archived Email: September 2005

Howdy y’all!
I just finished 2 grueling days of orientation - classes start now and from what I hear from former students the next 10 weeks will be unbelievably hard. I've heard most people average 5 hours of sleep a night. AVERAGE. I will be in class from 9-5 most days and 2 nights a week I have night class! yikes. But I am in a group of amazingly smart and interesting people from all over the world and it is just so fun and exciting. Seriously, the word “diversity has new meaning for me”. In my class there are people from 48 different countries ages range from 23-42 and just about every professional background you can imagine.

Photos on the way …. (sorry if this is repetitive information for anyone). They use the college system here – which means you have to belong to a College within the University – this is primarily for social and academic support. My college is Kellogg which is one for Post Graduates only. I’m living in housing through them and its quite nice because it’s the first time the college has house students… so you will see in my pictures everything is brand new—not something you find often in a school that is 700 years old! In my house I share a flat with a girl from Turkey – also in our house (but in separate flats) are students from China, Japan, the UK, Australia, France and Zimbabwe.

I've spent the last week, getting adjusted and settling in. It takes much longer than you would think -- not so much on the 24-7 services and help in these parts. I’m getting much better at getting around on my bike -- let me suggest "checking your blind spot" before changing lanes while on a bike on the wrong side of the road is not as easy as you would think! I’m also learning my way through the maze of buildings, rivers and walkways - and seriously guys - you should really try to come visit me. It just the most amazing city with so much history and culture.

Anyway, in short, I miss you all and I miss the good ole US of A, but I am acclimatizing to my new town and very excited to get to work. I love getting the updates from all of you - so keep them coming...
Cheers,
Christina

PS. My British friends think it’s quite funny when they have to translate things into “American” for me to understand…. I’m working on a list of funny different words they use… that will be in the next email… this one is long enough!