Nail-Biting Doublewhammy

Okay, so Berlin was awesome, photos to come.

Tonight, however, is something I'm fearing. It's both Goucher's room draw AND class registrationfor upcoming seniors. While it's no argument that having both these things on the same night is an idiotic decision, that's not what's aggravating me.

First of all, I'm room draw number 186 out of the entire senior class-- and the college as well, given that seniors draw first. I'm basically guaranteed a single, but am really hoping I can get one in Mary Fisher (one of the nicer campus locations). It all rests on 1) luck and 2) Sari, who was nice enough to be my registration proxy. If you're reading this, dear...thank you kindly!

More important are my classes. Hypothetically, being a senior and able to register before the rest of the college trumps any possibility of not getting the classses you want. Well, I got the last timeslot of the night-- 10 PM, 3 AM here in the UK-- and EIGHT of 15 seats in the Poe seminar I've been stoked on for months are already taken by ongoing seniors. I took another course with the same prof last semester, and emphasized my enthusiasm and interest for the seminar many times after she mentioned it to me. She's covering Lovecraft, too! I've sent her an email asking about possibilities of enrollment even if the class is closed by the time I register (which, according to my advisor, is likely). I wish I had more hands, and therefore more fingers to cross.

I have no food in my pantry/fridge space and better go get on that.

Wednesday, during which nothing fucking works.

Laundry was long overdue today, so I hauled my bags of it to the laundrette in the campus square. The loading/detergent process was difficult enough to do properly even with its written instructions. But the real topper was that the central pay slot started eating my coins-- not processing them, not regurgitating them in the change return, but simply absorbing them. I began to warn other unwary patrons that the thing was ferkakt (sp?) and got pen and paper from the Union Food Outlet next door and posted a sign. Calling the repair number listed on the pay slot proved little help; the guy hesitated and informed me with some reluctance that "we won't get to that for awhile." As I type this I'm sitting in my dorm room with three loads of wet laundry stretched and sprawled in every possible advantageous open space, hoping they'll be dry by morning. Then there's a completely unwashed load that I was about to put in-- and it was then that the slot stopped functioning properly

To add insult to injury, technology is failing me also. My little portable iPod speakers I received for high school graduation, having first lost the ability to charge an iPod, and then to play music from an iPod, are now hardly able to be used simply as auxilliary computer speakers. There's a lot of line hum/white noise going on whenever sound is put through them. Oh well... they lasted almost three years. Time to invest in new ones.

Further adding salt to wound is the slow death of my external hard drive. I love it-- it's an elegant brick that's quite portable and in over three years of owning it I've only filled up 60 of it's 250-gigabyte storage capacity. But now, whenever I open an item from it (usually meaning that I attempt to play a song from iTunes), the damn thing whirs and clanks for a good while "as if there were little men banging mallets inside" as my friend Max has said. It will ten whir down, and repeat the two-step process. Eventually the song will play or the file will be able to be opened, but ultimately the wait time is getting worse. I hope these things don't run too much...I NEED one in order to continue music and music management/playback while abroad. There's simply no room on my laptop's hard drive to hold my music collection.

One spot of good news: about to hit the gym at 3:30.

Arrival

Got in last night at 7 PM here. It was and is really cold.

The flight Sea-Tac to Cinncinati was fine, as was the flight from Seattle to London, but afterward the busride from London-Gatwick airport to University of East Anglia lasted some sevenish hours. I hadn't eaten since the brief breakfast on the plane because 1) I'm an idiot and 2) I would've had to wheel all my baggage around the airport to find food.

I couldn't and still can't make any expensive international cellphone calls because my cellphone doesn't even get reception. Going to have to find a way to get a plan or new phone or both for such things. I'm also writing this from a library computer because I won't have access to internet from my computer/dorm till Monday or so-- I have to wait to register and get my campus card and other stuff.

Anyway, while on the bus, I befriended a first-year named Jonathan, who hails from Cyprus and was also onboard. He was nice enough to help me with hauling my luggage. There's construction going on on the main roads of campus, so we had to be dropped off the main drive to campus. We then walked some 15-20 minutes to the on-campus hotel thingy, Broadview Lodge, so I could spend the night there-- I called UEA from the airport and they told me I had to find accomodations there as my room wouldn't be accessible yet. But somehow someone in the Accommodations office had forwarded my key to the Lodge's front desk. Even better, the woman working there phoned security and I got a ride to my dorm hall, preventing another tendinitis-inducing luggage haul.

My room is pretty darned huge, which is nice (pictures to come). They provided a set of sheets, which aren't the most cozy but are quite warm. My bed is like a shortened queensize. The showers & toilet are just down the stairs. The shower is like a damned coffin; I can't even stand up straight.

I woke up jet-lagged at 5-something (the only way I can tell is by looking at my computer clock). Then I went back to sleep an hour later, and woke up at 12:50. I just spent £36.50 on food at the campus supermarket and I hope it lasts. Orientation is tomorrow, so hopefully I'll feel a little more secure about things then. For now, I feel very insecure and unsure of things... there's not really anyone I know and I've only now just contacted the outside world, save for a brief call home from an aiport landline.

Thanks and love to any and all who read.