Rebecca’s Meanderings

what i meant to say is, the bathroom is completely tiled and the shower is just a curtain that pulls across to separate it from the toilet & sink. (I tried to take a picture to show but it just didn’t come out right.)

Today was easier - more “meet your Teachers” activities and one very long lecture on nutrition: labelling & contents. Interesting guy with lots of great energy who will be teaching us the local slang as well. “When a punter comes in and says, ‘I don’t know why Fluffy is so fat’ you can point out that wet food is 70% water, so a cup of dry is not its nutrative equivalent.” We like him. In fact, we like a lot of the teachers (they’re not Professors, that is only the head of the department). I met the woman I hope to do some research for at our drinks this afternoon as well. She’ll be teaching us neurology. Has recently been a participant in a paper on spinal nerve cord regeneration studies on the zebrafish. Paydirt! Have promised new friend Clare from New Orleans to not drop back by a year if I can avoid it. Love her! She’s super cute, super smart, sweetheart. (Reminds me very much of Sam from GAH. Sigh.)

I should take a moment to correct the information I shared regarding the numbers of international students. We, the Graduate Entrance Professionals, number 72 with one more to come once the visa clears. Usual years number 12-15. We are also the first year of an experiement in advanced-rate integration. Our “first year” is these 5 weeks of August until Fresher’s Week in September, when the 2nd Year students return. Theoretically, because we all have previous degrees in biological sciences, we have already learned all of the Anatomy, Physiology, and Biochemistry necessary. Unfortunately, I really needed to get my reviewing completed before leaving the States.

Tomorrow is our first day of practicals. They didn’t have our required clothing pre-ordered and so we’ve had to purchase what we could (at a tad higher cost) from a local distributor. Who ran out of Wellies. It’s a bit of chaos here. I now understand why all the paperwork referred to deadlines on or around 15 September. But we did get the Animal Husbandry Extra-Mural Studies requirements sorted out. Now it is just a matter of actually filling out the reports and completing the remaining (7? 8? 9? I don’t even know how many to consider finished) weeks. Since this cannot be done during the school year, I will be spending my Christmas vacation on a local dairy farm and my Easter break tending lambing and pigs. Or possibly the pigs could also be worked into the Christmas break and I can use the remaining Easter break after lambing on horses and poultry? In any case, I won’t be going on a National Lampoon tour. Hahahaha.

More pictures……

My lovely bedroom.