My first full week in Birmingham wasn’t as interesting as it might seem. Especially moving in on a sunday, since everything seemed to close at 5 around here in the weekends. This is my third visit to England, so I thought, I have already been here twice, I think I should be able to settle in pretty easily right? Well, on the contrary, it turned out to be a lot harder than I had thought. It was harder in a sense that, I had visited England and stayed with family the pervious two times, so ideally, staying by myself in a new country was going to be hard. However, I think as the week progressed, I started to settle in slowly. I was going to make it a day by day commentary, but it is not that exciting so here is a run down of the events.
The first two days being alone in the house I was feeling pretty homesick and was wondering why I picked BCU. I moved in on Sunday and started the International Orientation on Monday. Monday morning, I was up early and pretty excited to get the week started. I made my way over to the Baker building, where we were to get information about the orientation week. As I walked up to the building, I saw about 100 international students trying to get into the building so they can get their orientation packets. I eventually made my way in and since I had registered online beforehand, I was out of there in about ten minutes. After registration there was nothing to do until noon, when we had free lunch! The rest of the day consist of tours and information sessions. I skipped out on evening activities, since I wasn’t feel well at all (mostly because of the weather change) and went to bed. The rest of the week was going to workshops and talks about various different topics that pertained to international students. Some were interesting, others weren’t since, some of the stuff was very similar to the states. Meanwhile, durning the evening, me and bunch of my friends made our way to the local pub called, “Hare of the Dog” also known as “hotdog”. Friday evening was the finale event at Burlington Hotel in the City Centre, where we celebrated a successful end of the International Orientation.
Really, to me the first week was all about getting sick, adjusting to the weather, adjusting to the English ways of doing things, learning the transportation system, trying to figure out what terms are appropriate, and meeting new people. The only thing I have found that I wish were different is the Baker cafeteria. The reason being, at Juniata College, where I did my undergrad, their cafeteria was known as Baker as well and let me tell you, the food wasn’t all that good so, every time I go to the Baker building its like going back to Baker at Juniata!
This past week was far more fun and interesting. Especially, because we got to attend actual social media events in Birmingham. I had always seen and heard about DIY hack days and coffee meet ups, but never attended one, until this week. Check out Stephen Croome on Birmingham Social Media Café and BCC DIY Explained if you haven’t so already.
#1 by Jay Jay at September 28th, 2009
Was good to meet you on Friday – hopefully be more opportunities in the near future.
I had always seen and heard about DIY hack days and coffee meet ups, but never attended one, until this week.
Best part about it is that Birmingham is an awesome enough city (with enough well connected and well up for it chaps and chapesses) to allow you guys to set up your own events along similar lines.