There is always a catch

God is very brilliant. When you drink alcohol you get drunk and have a good time, but the next morning you get sick or have a hangover. When you smoke cigarettes you get a buzz, but a few years later you'll get lung cancer or have breathing issues. When you eat burgers, fries or any other foods that taste so good, you will end up making you fat, or have a heart attack later.

Well there is a catch to my schooling in the UK. So far I'm having a great time, I've gone to some pubs, and I have had excellent food but that all takes money(its more expensive here) and time. What I'm trying to get at is my class schedule. So I end up hardly actually being in the classroom. The way the British do it I have a lecture and seminar each for 50 minutes so for each class you go two hours a week. So my total classtime ends up being 8 hours a week. I'm taking 40 credits which equates to 12 hours back in the states so four different classes. The seminars consist of understanding the lecture better, making presentations, discussing readings or other interactive activities that you must do outside of class preparation. There is another catch though I don't actually have test, quizzes or midterms like in the state Wahoooooooo NO STUDYING haha (but booooo on all the assignments throughout the semester i will have, and keeping up with loads of reading). I am evaluated either by essay questions at the end of the term that cover everything in the semester or by a project. But from what I have been hearing if I keep up with the reading I should be fine (hahahahah if you catch my drift). But the essays and projects are time consuming and difficult ( word on the street).

But being in the classroom during lectures many things are very foreign to me. The way the british spell or prounounce certain things are very different than American English. And even on one of the slides my professor was going over the word orginazation was spelled with a Z and he was like sorry for the American spelling because they spell it with a s (orginisation), although that is a very minor example. In addition there are businesses or places in England they talk about that I have no clue what it is. For instance my professor was talking about Curry's I thought it was perhaps a food store, but to my surprise its actually Curry's digital so they sell electronics!

Oh and let me tell you another interesting fact so lemonade you would think when you order it would be freshly squeezed from lemon. Well what I have found is that in the UK and Europe lemonade is "sprite" or "7up" here, I have realized this because I ordered a lemonade and got a sprite and when I told the waiter I ordered lemonade they were like umm that is a lemonade, and gave me a perplexed look...oh the glories of "culture".

But, so far so good! Its a bit funny though because so far all my friends have been international students! Which they all are so nice and friendly, and I am enjoying their company. I also love the fact that I have been able to meet wonderful poeople from Amsterdam, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany and other countries (and I have never interacted with people from there) so its a great learning experience of different cultures, and thats part of why I wanted to have this experience. What I have learned is that in Demark you go to school for free but the catch is you have very high taxes (I think its about 50% taxes, WOW!) or in Amsterdam you pay about 100 Euro's per month (about $165 US Dollars) per month for healthcare, but when you go to the doctor its free ( no copay, or payment for surgeries), but the doctors evaluate you very thorougly to make sure something is wrong, but they have high taxes as well. So its been great seeing how other governments operate.

Another thing that makes me laugh is that all the international students love American television! They end up watching everything online and they are so fascinated its so cute! They also say I am so lucky to turn on the television and get so may shows (although I don't even know some of the shows they speak of because all I watch is MTV, and One tree Hill)!

Ps. speaking of MTV someone PLEASE email me and update me on the real world due to copywright restrictions when i go online to watch it I can't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :(

Also today I was able to see Vwarhe, Amy, and Andrew who were all at Western last semester so they were able to help me and tell me all about Portsmouth!! It was soo good to see familiar faces from "home".

Well like always I will update soon! I think the plan this weekend is to go out clubbing so I'm sure I will have fun stories to write about. As they say here Cheers!!! :)