Traveling, dorms, and how some British guy almost scared me to death

I don't really remember a lot of yesterday and the day before, but I'll share anyway.

My parents got me to the airport about 5 hours early, bought me lunch, stood around and watched me check my luggage (took forever), wandered around the airport with me for about another hour, and then finally said goodbye in front of the security line. They were distinctly freaked out. I don't blame them. I was distinctly freaked out during my entire first flight and kept having the "What have I done??" thoughts, until around the time I landed in Dublin, at which point my brain decided that the best way to deal with all of this was to pretend it wasn't happening.

By the time I got to Heathrow I was in a serene daze of unreality. The university's organization there was a complete clusterfuck and it took them three hours to get us all on their transportation and start taking us to school. I stood around with my suitcases and other dazed international students for quite some time, but I don't remember most of that. I kept dozing off on the way to school, so I don't remember much of that, either. I remember staring calmly out the window at sheep and Car Boot Sales and thinking "This isn't really happening. I had my life all planned out and there was nothing like this involved. I'll wake up and it will be early February and none of this will have occured."

By the time I got to school I was filthy and mostly asleep. I got my room key and someone took me to the dorm, and some guy took my suitcases from me and carried them up the stairs for me (which was probably the best thing anyone could have done for me, because the thought of trying to get them up the stairs made me want to burst into tears). The dorm is...scary, but I didn't really have the energy to deal with it and merely went "oh. wow." I showered and went out again because I was supposed to, called my parents from the first telephone booth I saw (I only had three free minutes on my card, so it was a "Hi I'm here I'm alive everything is alright bye" kind of call), skipped the party I was also supposed to go to, bought some scary prepackaged thing in the student union (which they apparently call the student guild hall here) and passed out.

Before I left, I read that there are three distict stages of culture shock. In the first one, you are incredibly enthusiastic about the new culture and tend to write home and gush about it. In the second, you realize that things don't work the same way there and become resentful. In the third, you get used to the differences and are comfortable there.

I seem to be going through all three at once. I am wildly enthusiastic about the Ben & Jerry's vending machine outside my dorm, I'm kind of appalled by the dorm itself, and mostly everything seems okay to me. Except for the fact that I can't have anything from the library until my student card is activated tomorrow, that is.

The dorm was built about 768945067 years ago, give or take, and whenever I told a student helper which one I was in they would laugh knowingly. It's a little scary in here. It's divided up into sub-dorms which are basically giant apartments with 12 bedrooms, a kitchen, a tiny lounge (the 12 chairs and coffee table take up all the available floor space) and a shower, bath, and two toilets in their own separate rooms. The whole thing is incredibly narrow and blocked off by fire doors at random intervals. If you are standing in the hall, there's barely room for another person to get by. The toilets are the kind with an overhead resevoir that flush with a chain, and the shower is basically a closet sized room with the spout on one end, a drain on the floor, and a hook at the other - in other words, it just leads directly to the hall, which I found really weird. There's also a random room with a connected sink and tub and overhead racks, which I hope to God isn't intended for laundry. (This is what I get for saying "Meh, better to live in the cheapest dorm and save money.")

My room is actually kind of nice. It's not very large, but it's bigger than I thought it would be. It's kind of cinderblocky and the bulletin board is frankly gross-looking, but it has a bed, a bedside table, a huge wardrobe, a sink with mirror and light, a desk and padded swivel chair, bookshelves, and a carpet that really looks too nice for a dorm room. The pirate flag will cover up a good percentage of the bulletin board (yes, it was terribly important to bring!). I would actually rate it higher than the room I had at Pardee Tower, where you didn't want to walk barefoot on the rug and you had to keep kicking the closet door back into its slot (oh, USC, how I do not miss you) - everything is in good shape. Also, once I found the Ethernet slot (in probably the last place you would look, except maybe for the ceiling or down the sink drain) it hooked me up immediately without demanding that I tromp across campus and register my computer and router and wait 24 hours for Internet access (oh, USC, how I hated you outright).

I got a little activity booklet and have been spending today doing what it tells me to. I went and heard people talk about the college (of course, as all colleges do, they talked about their Most Famous Graduate - someday, I may have to admit who it is and where I am, as I'm currently having to omit a lot of funny things to avoid giving away my location), I got given free stuff, and I got my student ID. I also found out why the place took me, although the guy checking my documents had to scare the bejeezus out of me so I could. I went to show the admissions people my passport and diploma as their letter told me to, and they guy asked for my graduate anthropology degree. I beg your pardon? I have this fine arts degree here, and some transcripts, and, um...Much muttering to the supervisor ensues. It seems they admitted me because of the anthropology classes I took at the community college (and, presumably, the volunteer work at the dig) and they thought I had a diploma to verify that. Um, no. They kind of went "Oh, okay," when I explained about the classes, and they approved me for full admission, so I'm hoping everything is alright. I didn't lie on the application (obviously) so I don't know where that came from. Hopefully, there's no basis for the archaeology people to give a howl of outrage and boot me back to America.

Anyway, I have more things to do just now. I'm sure I'll have more to write about later.