I am B O R E D!!! I have finished the days work I set out for myself, and have a bit more that I can start on. I don't want to go home, because there is nothing to do there, except hang out with the poltergeists and pretend to not be there. I am going to organize myself for tomorrow's work, but...boredboredboredbored. What can I do? I have limited funds, so going around spending loads of money to entertain myself is not on. I suppose I could check out some of the free touristy and historical things around me.

How do other international students spend their free time? ( or what there is of it?) given budget constraints, etc?

Ask them who invented gravity.

I suppose that having few choices of what to do besides come to the University and study is a good motivator. I mean, my other choice today would have been to stay in my room and pretend to not be there, while periodically imitating a poltergeist and moving things around and banging doors...

This morning I had a revelation what change JUST doing the PhD is going to be from doing the PhD AND work. I was at my desk at 8:00 a.m., but there was no one around to notice. I took off for my market shopping expedition and was back in an hour...but there was no one there to notice...! What freedom! What joy! Maybe its temporary insanity, but the PhD life seems like heaven for now!

Thanks for the explanation, Hypothesis. I did sort of get the image that it was like the Tube...where you might be armpit to armpit with 150 other people crammed like sardines into a train car, but everyone acts as if no one else is there, and they have their own solitary journey on the Tube.

What brings about this sort of (lack of) interaction? Is it due to the high population density? I come from a more rural place where everyone talks to everyone, and if you beep your car horn at someone, they wave hello--because that is what that means!!!

There were tons of fresh fruit and veggies, so I am snacking on bananas, blue berries and almonds...and it was sooooooo inexpensive, I nearly keeled over in surprise. I thought that UK food prices would be very high and I would be forced to live on a diet of pot noodle, but with this local market, I will eat well and healthy indeed. My big pasta cooking tonight ought to last a few days!!! I am so thrilled to have found this market!!!

Ironically, I just sent an enthusiastic email back home to the US, extolling the health virtues of PhD life! I am getting a lot of exercise walking to and from the University, and around the city centre, about 15-20 minutes each way, and I just had the most marvellous shopping trip to a local outdoor market where I hauled away the makings of a feast--Italian ham and sausage, fresh bread, olive oil, garlic, onions, peppers--a big pasta feast for me tonight!

I might qualify as a Canuck--South??? having spent my childhood in Detroit. My older sister told me that the toothfairy came from Windsor, Ontario, and I believed that for a long, long time. Sometimes I am taken for Canadian rather than a Yank--probably the Michiganer accent--when I am in the UK, but in this day and age, its perhaps better to be thought of as a Canadian than American!!!

So, what is the normal way that flatmates do or do not acknowledge each other? I think its soooooo odd to be sharing common living space and to not even bother to say hello. But the two poltergeist flatmates do not appear to be at all interested in even that much. Is this the way it is done? Or does this depend based on the living circumstances, and so forth? I can see not becoming best friends, but it seems weird to pretend that no one else is living there.

I have met but one flat mate, she is also not from the UK, and she was sooooo helpful in showing me how to work the heating, how to turn on the hot water heater!!! and other mysteries in the flat, and cleared out a shelf for me in the fridge AND shared a meal of her traditional food!!!!

The other flatmates might as well be poltergeists--you never see them, but hear them banging doors, moving chairs, taking a shower, etc. One of them apparently has lived there for years, and I think feels a bit of "ownership" of the place, given the disproportionate amount of room she takes up in the common areas.

As for the heating, it turns out indeed, I was missing out on something obvious--seems that there was a switch that needed to be switched in order to activate the heater, cunningly hidden under the bed...now I have heat galore, in fact, it gets so hot I turn it off and sleep with the window open!!!

I have no idea what those sort of positions usually pay. The University ought to be able to provide you some sort of information on how its payscale ranks with other universities for similar positions.

One benefit of the cold room...it drove me in desperation to the office at the university which has marginally more heat, and I have managed to finish one section of the chapter I was working on! Hooray!!!

I should rename myself Olivia Twist...

I will make a journey to Argos and get a small heater, I saw some on sale for not very much £ and even if the unit in the room starts to work, I will have it to keep me toasty warm. I also want to buy some scrubby things and cleaner for the kitchen, its very filthy, with grease everywhere...

Such is the life of a student!!! I am coping OK though...a nice large Starbucks has fortified me, and I think this evening I will see if the one flatmate I met wants to go to get something to eat!

http://swz.salary.com/CostOfLivingWizard/layouthtmls/coll_metrodetail_110.html


Try this..the cost of living wizard for St Paul Minneosota