Week 1 of Classes

Today is Wednesday - meaning I have no classes today or tomorrow! I had my first 'module' as they call it here yesterday. The course is Politics of Africa and since it is a 3000 honours module I figured it would be pretty intense and you would need to know a lot of background information about African politics - wrong. I walked in and the teacher, who is a young Brit (thank god, no language barriers) told us it would be an intro class because he assumes none of us know anything about African politics - sweet! The grading (which is far less emphasized in the UK) consists of one 5,000 word paper and one 3 hour final exam. There is a good amount of reading for the class but I expected that since there is only one class per week. Also, the entire module consists of 10 lectures - one of which was yesterday. I am still trying to figure out how there are only 9 lectures left and 15 weeks of school - minus 2 weeks for spring break. If I did my math right, the class would end in the last weeks of April - meaning an entire month to study for the exam? I am not sure yet.. but the class does seem interesting. Topics like gender inequality (which I studied heavily last year iat WAC), AIDS, political instability, coups, and other interesting themes will be discussed. Last night I went out with a few new friends to the Student Union to have my first Pub Night Quiz. I was not sure if I would be any good since I thought most of the information would be relative to UK culture. Turns out I was pretty good - until it came to the sports/shakespeare section which I have always been terrible at anyways. Tonight is Melville's wine and cheese night for the new students which I was told i MUST attend because it is number one free, and you get good food. I finally cleaned my room so it doesn't look like a bomb went off. Today was actually sunny outside, too bad I slept until 1 pm again. Tomorrow I am going to try to wake up early and go for a run along the North Sea. My next class is Thursday at 12 so until then I'll be catching up on my readings. I also bought Obama's biography.. I figured now that I am not living in America maybe I should read the American president's bio? Yesterday I felt so cultured, sitting in my Scottish dorm room, eating French food, and reading the a book about the US President. We'll see what tomorrow brings!