orientation: in which they assume the worst about us

Back for more!

We're still knee-deep in orientation; all we seem to be learning about is how to sleep through a lecture. Really, these lectures are aimed at the biggest douchebags and the most unintelligent among us. For the whole morning, we talked about how to be nice to our RAs and how to not give people a hard time. (seriously? we're not supposed to yell at the staff? i had no idea.) Then we spent the afternoon learning the history of England- literally defining terms like "England" and "The British Isles." Maybe if I hadn't taken a class in Irish history last semester it would have been a tad more interesting, but instead I could only point out things that they were saying that were wrong. (typical Wellesley-style.) 

On a more exciting front, the food shopping and wandering the neighborhood is going quite well; we've successfully made various sorts of pasta, soup, drinks, etc. Natasha (roommate three of three) is trying to get us to try her Marmite (she's actually British) but I'm not giving in. I've been tricked into things like that before, and it didn't end well. 

We've also gone out for the last two nights to various pubs with the whole group, so that's been fun. There was a pub quiz last night that we lost miserably, coming in last... but we weren't exactly paying attention, so I suppose that's what we get.

Backtracking a little bit for those who are actually interested... Yesterday was the start of orientation, before we hit the boring lectures, so the whole group went on a (badly timed) boat ride down the (entire) Thames- it was raining and cold and slow, so we pretty much all fell asleep. That was our one big adventure out of Kensington for the last few days, because we've been pretty confined to our neighborhood. Once we get into a routine, I think we'll have more time to adventure around- we'll definitely be going around more this weekend.

Grey pictures from the boat ride:

The funniest thing about the last two days is that I've realized what a huge dork I am; I'm actually looking forward to classes and it's causing me to really miss the (insane) culture at Wellesley. I miss talking about class and work, you know, being mentally busy. Ah, well. It'll change once orientation is over; I'm sure I'll wish I had less work and more time to explore by the end of the week.

Photos of the room (complete with roommates) are coming soon, promise. We're all getting along well and the room, though getting more crowded, is working out totally fine.