I know that I just finished midterms and really I should probably take a bit of a longer break, but I've already started to lightly review what we had been taught this past week. I basically did it since if I stop studying now it just is so hard to start again. I've been good each day this week by studying a bit, but now the real trick is going to be to see if I can keep it up :P
On Thursday we just had two lab classes, so after those a few of my friends and I all decided to go to see the movie Avatar. We had been talking about going to see it for awhile now, but we finally went. We had heard that the film is best in IMAX 3-D, so we looked and found that there is one not too far away. We walked over and watched a matinee showing. The theatre was in the Millennium Point Think Tank here in Birmingham, and it is a really neat building. Birmingham City University seems to have a bunch of its arts courses housed here in this relatively new building. Also the "Think Tank" is in this building, which looks like it's probably some sort of neat science museum/planetarium. It looked really neat so we might go back another day and check it out. We ended up getting tickets for the show and then went and lined up to get into the theatre (we were about 30min early and so we managed to be at the front of the line). We got our choice of seats, so of course picked middle seat near the top. The screen wasn't as large as I had expected for an IMAX, but it was still bigger than the average theatre screen. We were also given some one size fits all 3-D goggles which even fit over glasses (if you wear them). The movie turned out to be quite interesting and very entertaining. It was a bit disappointing though as I thought that the 3-D effects might have been a bit better, but there were a few moments that made good use of the 3-D effect. The 3-D goggles after a bit started to irritate my nose near the end of the film, but it was still a good movie and a great experience. The crazy part of the whole adventure was finding out how close the theatre is! It turned out that the theatre is literally across the road so it took us all of about 2 minutes to walk there (since traffic was a bit busy :-P), so I'm sure we'll be going back at least to see another movie, or at least to go to the Think Tank.
This week I also figured out what I will be doing for accommodations next year. Here at Aston, all international students are guaranteed a place in residence for every year, but home/UK students are only really able to stay in residence during there first and last years. Two of my friends are UK/home students who needed to find a place to live next year. It seemed to be to be really early to start looking, but apparently it's actually a bit late, as many places get completely booked up for by January (for the start of the 2010/2011 academic year). I went looking with them and it turns out that basically all of the places in Birmingham for students are essentially within a five minute walk to campus, and all of them have a similar floor plan to that of the new residences on campus (and even cost the same amount). It's kind of odd that way actually. But all of the residences consists of a room with an en-suit bathroom and a group of 3-8 people all sharing the kitchen (which is the same as most of those on campus next year since Aston is tearing down all of the old residences as they are currently completing a huge brand new residence complex). Ultimately my friends liked the look of one place called "The Heights" which is an off campus privately run residence that is across the street from Aston's main building. I liked the look of it and also that I would know who I would be living with (since in on campus accommodations you can't really specify who you would like to live with). We ended up taking a unit at The Heights; so there will be myself, another Canadian friend and our other two UK/home friends. The place we got is one of the better 4 bedroom units as it is on the top (6th) floor of one of the buildings with a view of Birmingham (instead of a view of the road and Aston University). I am definitely looking forward to having my own room with my own bathroom (as I’m starting to get tired of sharing by bathroom with 5 other guys), but even though we will be sharing the kitchen, I’m sure it’ll work out well since we all cook and eat together right now anyways.
*pic from google street view
On Friday after two lectures in the morning, a bunch of my friends (and even a few of our lecturers) all went over to a pub for lunch and a drink. It was a great way to wind down the week, but the main reason we did it was because in about an hour we were all going to have to go back to talk to our personal tutors (during our orientation week groups of about 10 students were assigned to a faculty member/lecturer who would be our personal tutor) to get our midterm marks, so many of us were a little nervous. It ended up being a great way to lessen our anxiety, and I'm not sure if it was because of the alcohol, or just the stories/conversations we were having, but whatever the reason it worked well. I wasn't too worried about my marks, but I was a bit nervous, since it was my first set of real tests since I had arrived. Ultimately I ended up being very pleased with my midterm marks as I was fairly consistent with my marks, over all six exams, I ended up with an average of about 77%. The weirdest thing was the class averages for the midterms as they varied greatly (one course had a class average of 73% while another had an average of 47% - which here anything over 40% is still considered a pass). The best part was that I had made a bet with one of my friends concerning our marks, which I ended up winning, so Friday night I got a free desert AND a drink :D.
And so that was my week...
Jeff
* Word of the Week: On Friday when I went to order a sticky toffee pudding for desert I asked for a "pudding" so they asked me which one. This confused me a bit since the pub's only pudding was this sticky toffee pudding, so I asked what other ones they have. The server proceeded to read off the entire desert menu to me, and so I ended up pointing at the sticky toffee pudding. Afterwards I ended up asking one of my friends about it and it turns out that in England the word "pudding" refers to any "desert", so it could be cake, sundae, pie, etc.
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