Ow.

I got another one of those scary airmail envelopes today. This one was about four times the size of the others, and it contained the university's Instructions for Clueless Internationals. Mostly what interested me was the prices. With the dollar currently being worth pretty much nothing, the price conversions made me gag. If I smoked, a packet of cigarettes would cost about $11, so it's a good thing I don't, or I would have to stop immediately. (Interestingly, if I want to keep getting some kind of coffee drink once a week, it would cost about the same. Hmmm.) A paperback would cost me about $12, which makes me want to cry. It also appears I will be confined to the university town, because I cannot afford the trains. Somebody fix the economy, immediately.

Some of it was so awesome I'm going to have to take a highlighter to it and pass it around to everyone I know. For instance, if you get ensuite accommodation, you get heated towel rails. Heated towel rails. In student housing! I have never encountered a heated towel rail in my life and I associate them with the kind of hotel I will never be able to afford. I'm also terribly amused by the way they inform you which of their buildings has air conditioning, but this is probably because I lived in Southern California for four years (although, actually, the art department did not have air conditioning, and neither did my apartment or any of the student housing I lived in, and the Californians certainly weren't nice enough to warn me before I showed up in the middle of August). I also love their photos of campus. All campus photos have to be cheerful and sunny, and it's really easy in Southern California where it looks like that every day anyway, but even I know their photos are completely contrived. It's okay, I know I can't take naps outside in the grass in February anymore.

Information that made me feel better - there are Indian groceries (I mean, I kind of assumed there were, but at least now it's confirmed) so I am saved and there will be familiar food and I can remain a happy vegetarian. Also, my mother has been freaking out lately and trying to talk my dad into escorting me over, (apparently, in her world, two clueless adults are a huge improvement over one clueless adult?) but there are people who will come to the airport and retrieve me, so that will save about $1,000 (83 paperbacks!) right there.

Anyway, I am at this very moment supposed to be calling a doctor my mother has not yet fought with to arrange to get my shots (meningitis and HPV, neither of which I technically need, but I want them anyway dammit) so I will continue this later.