First Day

Well, today was a little bit odd.

I woke up this morning, tired. I got up and immediately started packing things up. Apart from a few issues with the computer at home having a cross-over cable incompatible with the cable modem, everything went according to plan. We got into the car after packing (Dad had a conversation with our opposite neighbour who suggested my parents buy a house in Coventry and rent it out… nice idea, but a very big up-front cost that'd be impossible to weather).

The drive to Conventry was a bit heated. Mum was getting hungry and fretting about having a hypoglycemic attack, but got very defensive when I said panicking would make the risk greater. They were also worried about a massive tailback on the motorway we were on in the opposite direction.

We arrived and were stunned by the Warwick campus. Absolutely stunned. No litter, and beautiful. We got directed by a kind traffic warden to park off-road given the trailer and the need to eat, and found a bar beginning with an X in the Student's Union. I was very surprised to find it had wireless available. I checked the traffic and there was nothing mentioned.

Food was good for me, though mum thought hers was bland. I had Nachos, not knowing what they were and never having had them before, mum had honeyed chicken, and dad had the special, a beef sandwich. As for drinks mum had a diet coke, dad had a pint, and I had freshly squeezed orange juice made from the most complicated contraption around. It wouldn't look out of place in a steampunk novel, feeding in the oranges, squeezing them AND throwing them away.

Then we wandered down the corridor to register for the Warwick health stuff. I got the forms but was told I needed to know my room, so we wandered to where the horribly written and confusing enrolment guide said, the Rootes building. From there we were told to go to my building, Arthur Vick. Mum asked more questions but I was fed up of waiting, told them to stay around whilst I checked my room out.

I got to the building and it was stunning, with a fountain in the yard and nice, clean buildings made of coloured brick. The tent was full of charming, if maybe very rich, characters and they let me have my keys with only an emergency contact form, another random filled in and a promise to give them photo ID. I got AV building 1, room 1. Easy to remember if I get drunk!

I checked my room briefly. It was lovely.

I went back and we headed to the vice-chancellor's speech. Dad and I dozed through it. It was a very marketing-driven and clichéd talk but it seemed to be from the heart and not rehearsed to death, it struck me as having spontenaity. The jazz band before-hand was pleasant but they were playing it way too safe with their improvisations except for a stunning trumpetest who belted out what he wanted to play with zealotry.

We arrived to the room and started unpacking. It turns out all my neighbours are nice and the place has a shared kitchen/lounge to twelve students. I've put my PS2 in the social room because I don't play it enough and want to share something. I met the someone in charge of the rooms and a tutor as they walked in and invited me to an Arthur Vick welcome trip at 20:00.

Unpacking was relatively easy, but it took me ten minutes of airwave-crawling to find out there is no digital TV signal present in or around Coventry at all. Bugger! I only have a digital TV card and a meticulously set up MythTV installation that I was addicted to. I may have to socialise! Mum got very edgy when I was doing that. She hates me fiddling around on computers when she's around. We had a major row and I stormed off to finish packing as she was belittling all the stuff I was doing whilst simultaneously saying I was belittling all the parenting she'd done in her life.

Anyway, we made up, and they left. It was a very brief but strong goodbye. I won't adjust to this for ages. I want to go home already. I popped in to see a friend from school called Olga. She was friendly, gave me a game to play. I hope I can run it in Linux with WineX.

I went on to a supermarket and bought a load of crappy sandwiches and ate them, carefully skirting a chanting crowd of Freshers cheering and raving around someone with a megaphone. I headed back to my room just in time for the meetup. I met two people and talked to them but they actually seemed annoyed with the way I commented and tried to inspire discussion/debate with any subject they came up with. Maybe I need to tone down my talkiness.

The bar was HORRIBLE. Noisy and full of people getting way too drunk. I left after a lemonade and went back to Olga's, who showed me Doom 3. Very pretty, but very boring. Played like Doom 1 after a boring Half-Life style introduction. Bang, bang, bang. bang. I think the fact the lights kept going out was meant to be creepy. I just walked through the rooms shooting until I got bored.

I came home, logged on to the Internet and half-heartedly decided to try the blogging system. So, here I am.

This is really weird. I feel like I'm in a dream!

: 25 Sep 2005 00:23 |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem