Bridget,

Sorry i haven’t gotten back to you about my schedule just yet. Tomorrow is registration and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are days for gathering signatures. We need them from the department heads of each course we’re going to take so we can talk to them and be accepted into class. But now i’ve just finally gotten that done and i can tell you what my schedule is. I have class Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday (mornings Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday, afternoon Thursday or Tuesday i forget but it doesn’t matter because that’s early in the morning for you anyway). The best night to call is probably Tuesday night. I’m not sure how your calling plan works (if it’s just for evenings or whatever), but you’ll probably best find me around 10:00 here (4:00 there). There’s a common room where everyone watches TV and we can always hear the phone because it’s right off that room. Wednesday nights are the night that everyone apparently goes out and gets hammered and some weeks i’ll be leaving Thursday to do some traveling.

It’s kind of tough right now because everyone (including myself) is in an insecure stage where they want to be cool and just impress everyone else. Especially the American people. They just go out and drink excessively *every night* and well, you know, that’s not for me. I think a lot of people have never been overseas before and they’re just going nuts with being here. I think it will evolve though. The British people are cool but sitting in on one of their conversations is really tough. It’s a completely different culture. First of all, it’s hard to understand all the accents (Liverpudlian, Mancunian, Lancashire, Northeastern, etc.) and secondly their conversational flow is quite a bit different than ours. It’s like listening to a foreign language. People are really nice, but it’s hard not to fall by the wayside when people are talking. You really, really have to pay attention in order to understand what’s going on. I’ll get used to it in a week or two though.

I’m sorry I didn’t write you on Tuesday or Wednesday. On Tuesday I finally got my credit card so I went into town to get money. There’s a $100 limit so i just got about £60. I still need to call my bank for a new ATM card. Yesterday I went down to Liverpool–i saw the Tate Gallery (well, most of it). On the 3rd floor they have an amazing exhibition of collage art–i really think you would like it. Much of it is like the decoupage (or however you spell it!) that you do–it reminded me of you! The curator for this exhibit was Peter Blake, the guy who did the album cover for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. He’s collected lots of different collages from the past and now has a collection of collages that have become high art. There’s some work by Paul McCartney and he did the soundtrack for the exhibit too!

Anyway, there’s a lot going on this week with everything and i don’t have a login id yet for the computers in the lab. So every time i have to ask for a guest login in order to use the computers. I’m sorry i haven’t written you more but there’s a lot going on. I talked to the computer science professors here and i think the two classes i’m taking are going to be a joke. I told them my background and they laughed and said it would be pretty easy (there’s a lot of beginners in my classes who have never programmed before)! One of the professors was really cool. She has crazy black hair, a nose ring and wears death metal t-shirts. She was telling me about how when she was in college she would go to the pub on Friday night and drink so much that she wouldn’t wake up until Monday morning! Crazy.

I think the only really hard class will be the 20th Century Short Stories one, but i’m not too worried. We’re supposed to read two stories by Tuesday and i think we did both of them last semester in interpreting lit. At least one of them. The other sounds familiar though. So i’m not TOO worried.

Well, i think i’m gonna go down to the market now. I’m going to see if i can find a cheap guitar and some film (forget to get that) and a camera battery. I’ll try to write you sometime this weekend or maybe tomorrow. I don’t know what i’m doing yet. I think i might go to Chester (a town with a Roman wall around it) or Manchester. Not too far just yet.

…

Ryan

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo