First Day of Class

I'm slowly making new friends! On Thursday evening last week we went to a postgrad only pub quiz on campus. We did quite horribly (although not last place) and met some new friends! We met Matt, a law student from Boston doing his third year abroad, and Danny, a friend of Mags' who is a PhD student in Film Studies. Even though we didn't know hardly any of the answers we still had a lot of fun! We then went out to Grayfriar's Bobby for a drink.

On Sunday we invited Mags, Matt, and Danny over for dinner. Sophie made carrot, potato, and lentil vegetable soup and Caoimh made a yummy lasagne. I made bread and butter pudding for dessert. It was a wonderful night all around! Lots of wine, lots of laughing, etc.

Monday was my first day of classes. It's so refreshing to actually know what's going on now! From 2-2:30 I had Research Skills and Methods which is a pass/fail class that teaches you about finding sources and doing bibliographies and stuff. We're meeting 3 times this week and then we have to attend 3 workshops throughout the rest of the semester. Everything else will be online and we're not graded on content - just that we do the assignments and show up.

Following that I had my core class for my programme which was Investigating Change in the Institutions, Cultures, and Languages of Europe (ICICLE) from 4-6. This class will be every Monday from 4-6 and just consists of the people from my programme...there are a whopping 7 of us. There is me, an American boy from Ohio, a girl from Romania, a boy and a girl from Ireland, and a boy and a girl (who is pregs and due in November) from Germany. Nice and diverse! But amusing that there is a boy and a girl from almost every country represented. I was hoping it would be bigger and with more people but maybe since it's the first time the programme is being offered, they're keeping it small to test it out. It kind of makes me feel a lot better that I was able to get in! He said there were over 30 applications. Next Tuesday I'll be starting my option module on the Holocaust.

Tonight my cousin Julie and her husband Andreas are stopping in Edinburgh on their way to Newcastle to look at flats (I've mentioned this before - they're moving from Germany to England next month). I'm very excited to see them! It's been...how long? A year? Two? Yeah, probably closer to two. It's probably just going to be a quick visit since they're not getting here until 7:30/8 but I'm still happy to see them!

I've still got things to sort out with my cell phone but tomorrow we're going to go see The Other Guys with Will Farrell and Mark Whalberg. I didn't want to see it much but everyone else is going so I figured I might as well!