Down The Rabbit Hole

Spent last night in doing homework… what a stellar student I am! I think the rest of my flat now thinks I’m incurably boring, but what can you do? I wanted to get it out of the way sooner but I discovered that having to reference sources is a nightmare, so it took ages…

It’s another beautiful day in Norwich. We have had a couple of rainy days, but the rain isn’t too bad at all -  I haven’t bothered using an umbrella once yet, which is definitely a novelty! So the plan is to go and explore the river a bit further; I discovered a couple of weeks ago that if you take a turn away from the broad, you can follow part of the River Yare and the path takes you past lots of horses and donkeys and through a bit of woodland, which is really beautiful, so I’ll explore a bit of that.

Last week, we started our medicine module - which is great, because all we had been doing before that was biology and chemistry at AS Level standard which was a bit frustrating, but now we’ve started Genetics and Reproductive Medicine, which is amazing (even if the boys can’t bring themselves to say the dreaded “pregnancy” word… this is the future of medicine, haha). My PBL group are all lovely and good workers, which means that we have a great system of research going so hopefully it’ll continue like this throughout the year!

Through CU, I’ve managed to settle in with a lovely group of girls, Katy, Emma, Charis and Rachel - we all have quite similar interests even if we’re doing very different degrees, and I feel very lucky to have found a group of great friends so early into the semester. We’ve formed a Thursday night group where we’ll go out somewhere (this Thursday we went to student discount night at Chapelfield Shopping Centre - think Victoria Square. I still couldn’t afford anything even with 20-30% discount, haha!) or rotate around each other’s flats having a gossip or watching Don’t Tell The Bride on iPlayer (Katy is getting married in July so it’s always good fun). 

CU itself is great - a little bit of a meat market; I can’t lie. It’s a little scary, because every nice Christian boy and girl is there to look out for a potential spouse, and the pressure is on. Some of the girls even assess the boys by looks, job prospects and the likelihood of being able to arrange childcare time between his career and theirs. I could excuse it if it was just the girls, but the boys are even worse! Absolutely crazy. Other than that, though, CU is fantastic, I’ve met lots of lovely people (haven’t started assessing the boys for their career prospects yet, though…) and the teaching is great, and it allowed me to get involved with the Christian Medical Fellowship, which is a network of Christian doctors and med students throughout the UK and provides great support and advice. I’m still looking for a church - I went to King’s Community Church the first Sunday and Norwich Central Baptist last Sunday. Both were lovely, full of welcoming people with really great atmospheres, but I didn’t feel as comfortable as I would have liked at either of them, so the search continues. This week I’ll try Surrey Chapel in the morning and potentially Holy Trinity in the evening, so we shall see how that goes.

Also, we’ve been assigned CU mentors - and mine is a lovely girl called Deborah who is from Ballymoney, of all places! Team Norn Iron! 

My flatmates are as wonderful as ever - James had his operation and got home a while ago; he’s currently limping about on crutches in a shocking pink cast (his choice) and is recovering very well. Some of them are quite messy people but they have started to get their act together recently with the kitchen - but in their favour, we also have some really great cooks in the flat! I’m doing quite well; I haven’t resorted to takeaways or microwave meals yet (unlike my flatmate Ryan, who has eaten a microwave meal EVERY night since we got here, which is a bit frightening), even though we don’t have a proper oven and I don’t quite trust the oven setting on the microwave yet! 

 So all in all, things are going well. I’m feeling very settled here now, although I can’t wait until Christmas to get home (I found out that the Continental Market closes the day after I get back! I’m raging!).

Off for my walk now, more updates soon.

Love,
Laura x 

They obviously didn’t have a saint like Patrick to get rid of all the snakes here. Nearly had a heart attack when I saw this and realise what it was!

Meet Siggy, our new flat pet :)

1. English people find the way Northern Irish people say “PowerPoint” absolutely hysterical.

2. Our “drizzle” is Norwich’s “heavy heavy rain”. I’m going to love this :)

3. It’s not a cliché that boys never put the toilet seat down. 

4. When people say it’s a half hour walk to the city centre, they are LYING. I know this because I walked it and it took an hour and fifteen minutes. Sore feet :( 

5. Norwich and Norfolk University Hospital is MASSIVE.

The reason I know this about the hospital is because we had a bit of a flat emergency. Like I said, we’re on the ground floor so a lot of my flatmates prefer to climb out of their bedroom windows to get outside rather than go the long way round to the door, up the stairs to the exit then back round the side of the two blocks next door. However, one of my flatmates, James, managed to trip on his way out of his window and land awkwardly on his foot the other night, which swelled up to twice its size yesterday morning. So I went with him to the university medical centre, who sent him to the hospital for an X-ray. Turns out that while he didn’t actually break any bones, he managed to bend two of them completely out of place and needs an operation on Friday, and is being kept in hospital til then. Absolutely crazy :( So one of my flatmates and I went to the hospital last night to check on him and I have never seen a hospital that big in my life. It took us about half an hour just to find the right place. It’s all shiny and new and lovely, and I’ll start placements there sometime next semester, apparently, which is great since it’s only a half hour walk from campus. Heading up there tomorrow to see how James is doing after his operation. Hopefully it’ll go okay, but he’s going to need a lot of physio for the next few months.

I’ve also started my course, which at the minute is slightly boring as we haven’t started anything medical or health-related, we’ve gone back to KS3 Maths, Chemistry and Biology so we’re all a bit bored since we’ve done it so many times before. But the lecturers are lovely, as are my coursemates and we start our Health Module next week which should make it a bit more interesting. (Also, I share a maths class with a girl from Belleek so there’s a familiar accent about!) 

CU started on Tuesday, which was really great - I met a girl from Ballymoney! See, we’re everywhere! - and they are doing a lot of stuff throughout the year, and there are church meets tomorrow so we can all try and find a church. I met a really lovely group of girls there, Katy, Rachel, Emma and Charis, so I’ve done a few things with them during the week as well as some girls from my course. Tomorrow afternoon we’re having a picnic by the broad, which will be lovely! 

Missing home and you guys a lot. Norwich is beautiful but it’s never going to be home, but it’s not long until I’m back at Christmas!

(Also, how awesome was that thing with Farmer Graham in Ballyrobert and Rihanna? What a legend! Bet you she got a shock!)

 

Best idea ever.

Right-o! 

Decided not to use the ticket I’d bought to go out tonight to the LCR (the main venue in the university) because, well, I’m very tired and can’t be bothered, haha. Most of the people in my flat are heading out, and are half-cut at the minute but they are all a lovely bunch, so I lucked out there! 

So, in the flat, we have eight boys and five girls, and we think that there is still another girl still to arrive. So far have, we have James from Ipswich, Ryan from somewhere-near-Cromer, Wilson (who arrived last week but no one who moved in today has seen hair or hide of him so he remains a mystery!) Daniel from Devon, Stephen from Cambridge, Jenny from Wales, Charlie from London, Claire from Australia, Gemma from Colcester, Alvin from …somewhere, Matt from Vancouver and Marie from Surrey. They are all very lovely! Three are medical students who arrived last week, one is studying Economics, one Chemistry, one Sports and PE and another is studying Environmental Geophysics - no idea what the others are studying but I’ll soon find out! So we have three international students, Claire, Matt and Wilson… and as an honorary foreigner, me, since the others have taken to nicknaming me “Ireland”. They love the accent, repeat back words that they like better in Norn Iron and were in stitches at the way I pronounce James’ name, and the word “gate”. No clue, honestly.

The rooms are much nicer than I thought they would be, and magically, my bedlinen even matches the purple carpet and lilac doors. Magic :) The kitchen is huge, we’ve been in it most of the day playing Uno and Spoons (yes, really).

So I think I’ll settle in nicely. Having nice flatmates definitely helps, although Norwich is feeling quite far away from home right now. It was hard saying bye to Mum and Dad, but really, they’re only a couple of hours away so it’ll all be grand, and I’ll be home in three months anyway!

So now, I’m going to go and read for a bit before an early night because I am shattered! Night, all! xx 

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go…

So, a revamp. Finally decided to find a good use for this blog and not waste webspace, so here we go!

Since I might not get to talk to all of you on the phone as often as I’d like, I thought I’d post on this so you can get more of an update on what’s going on, and how life is going across the puddle in Norwich. Right now, it’s seeming very far away, and there are a lot of things I’ll miss - family, friends, the sea, even Tayto Spirals (D:) - but all the same, it is an exciting new start.

So, new start, new blog.

So this is it. The log of what it’s like to leave a small safe town and move to… well, a small safe city. It is Norwich, after all. But it’s moving country, from Northern Ireland to big bad England, off to a university surrounded by lots of other students. Down the rabbit hole, essentially. (Or maybe actually, considering that the university is a wild bunny reserve and that I’ve never learned the fine art of balancing).

At least there’ll be plenty to write about. If Norwich and medical school aren’t at least as mental as home is then I will be sorely disappointed…

Watch this space…