Registration & Exploration

Today has been very interesting so far. I got up at 8:30 to meet Noelia and Melisa at 9, so we could talk about the classes we wanted to register for. Then we had to go find people to sign our registration sheets. I suppose they could have been more clear about WHO had to sign our sheets and where to find them. As it was, we walked around Bangor for about an hour and a half, looking first for buildings, and then for the right people in them.

<---These are the mountains we can see from campus!!

It turns out, there are really only a few people here, and in each department (or as they call it, each "school"), that know how to help international students. The buildings we had to go to are about 1/2 mile away, which wasn't too bad. And the first person was easy to find. The others...not so much. We went back and forth between buildings, asking for directions, etc. I walked up and down one hill twice before finding the correct person. And we took a break for lunch before going BACK to find more people.









As it turns out, I am taking the Bangor equivalent of 12 credits at Ripon. In Bangor, it's actually considered 40 credits. I am only in two classes: Sociological Theory; and Psychology of Health and Prevention. They look interesting, but I'll only be in class for around 11 hours each week.

Other than struggling to find people and buildings (which are scattered around Bangor), today was really good. We found this castle(see above right). We had seen it from a slight distance and wanted to explore it. Turns out that it is the Main Arts building. It really is a castle, but it is used for offices and classrooms. I'll have most of my classes in it! And, the guy who lives down the hall told me that it was suppose to be used for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies, but there was an addition to it that deterred them from using it. Al called it "architectural cancer." --->










After turning in my registration form, I just came back to my room. I'll do dinner with the girls in a few hours, but other than that, plan on just chilling tonight. It rained all day, which was a little depressing, and it makes me want to stay in my room. But we'll see--one of my flat-mates really wants me to come meet a whole bunch of people at the bar tonight. I'm a little hesitant...they're all really nice, but it seems like they do an awful lot of drinking. Nikki (who lives across the hall) tells me that they are out every night. The other girls have heard similar things from the people who live near them. It's a little weird, honestly. I want to be social and meet people, but right now, everything is really new and a tiny bit scary. We'll see, I guess. Anyway, I'll add a few pictures with this so everyone can see what I am talking about!