Hello friends, it's update time!

The first week of class is underway, and let me start this post with one of my characteristic overdramatic venting sessions. I don't know whether it is the higher education system of the UK, or just UCL in general, but everything seems to be unnecessarily complicated and confusing. I'm not kidding. There are three different websites I had to operate for registration, and the system tells you which classes are approved (because none of them are guaranteed) after the first week of school already starts. I didn't find out that a class I signed up for got rejected until after I had already missed the new class that I got placed in (attendance is mandatory, which is why that matters). After the registration debacle finally got sorted out, and I made it to the rest of my classes, I was presented with a new obstacle: textbooks. All of my professors gave their reading lists with the required textbooks on the first day of class, and by the second day of class all but one of the books I needed were sold out, and wouldn't be restocked until next week. Why were these books sold out, you ask? BECAUSE THE BOOKSTORE ONLY ORDERS AROUND 3 COPIES OF EACH AT A TIME. So now I am forced to duke it out with the 27 other students who also couldn't buy their copies from the store to check out the sole copy from the library. But other than that, school is great! That was only partially sarcastic. I really am excited about the classes I'm taking (which are Comparative Politics, British Politics, Politics of the European Union, and the Welfare State).

Okay. Enough school talk. The Sports Clubs here are the fun ways to get involved in the social scene at UCL. After some research, I discovered that the members of the Lacrosse Club here have the most fun. And so, last Sunday, I attended the Welcome Training Session. After an hour bus ride to the field, three hours of honest-to-God lacrosse playing in all of its humiliating glory, and an hour ride home, I have come to the incontrovertible decision that lacrosse is just not my sport. This means that I am the UCL Lacrosse Club's newest Social Member (you guessed it: all social events, no lacrosse).

The first and last time I will ever wield a lacrosse stick

Every Wednesday here is Sportsnite, where all of the sports clubs get together at the school pub to take advantage of the drink specials, and then later travel to Loop, a club that is rented out every week for UCL sports. I'm guessing my social membership isn't so hard to understand.

Now that school has started I'm definitely starting to get into a routine, and it really does feel like I live here, and not just like I'm on an extended vacation. That's all for now, have to get ready for Sportsnite! (theme is cops and robbers, so obviously I'm getting super creative and wearing all black).

P.S. Here is a selfie of me and Lizzie and our camel friends that we met on our run (in Regent Park which goes past the London zoo). For your amusement!