First week conclusion

Hey you all.

It had been a funny and exciting Fresher's Week for me. Although I did not really attend much of it. I went to the maths introduction and to the exchange student introduction and of cause I met my personal tutor and my studies tutor. So let me start talking about that first.

The maths introduction was made for first year students mainly, so I did not really get any information I would have needed. The exchange student introduction was more useful, as I got information on travel around the UK and about English language courses. I will apply for those tomorrow, and hopefully I will be allowed to attend both I want to apply for.

I met my personal tutor Alastair King on Thursday together with four other students. Three of them are German and come from Hamburg. The forth comes from Australia. The talk with Mr King was quite interesting and really useful. It was about what we planned on doing in Bath - study-wise but also what we personally want and what Bath can offer. After having our group photo taken, me and the other Germans went to Gregory Sankaran to talk about timetabling and choosing our units. For me, it wasn't such a hard choice, I was able to pick two of my most favourite subjects, one subject I find quite interesting and metric spaces, which I have never learnt properly.

Well, enough of my unit choices, which you probably find boring anyway. So back to the beginning of last week. Anton's brother and his brother's girlfriend came visit him on Wednesday, which my house took as an excuse to go to the pub, and get quite drunk. It was a really great evening, which kind of ended with me hurting my hand quite badly. Where other people think that is a bad think, it probably isn't. It turned out, that having a story to tell it a great way to meet new people, as for me, before I met my personal tutor, I waited with the other students outside his office, and got into a conversation with them. It ended in spending the day with the three Germans, and meeting some other Erasmus students in the City for shopping and coffee - and in the evening we all had a lovely dinner together at Paul's place. We decided on doing that next week as well, I am not sure if we do, but it would be a great thing.

On Friday some of the Erasmus students and I met in the city again to have a night out. We were at vodka revolution, which was great. They just played my kind of music, so I cannot complain about a thing. Well, except for them closing up at 12pm. The girls all were tired and decided to call it a night, but Paul and I went for a last beer in a Pub. Good choice, since it turned out, Paul and I have at least two lectures and the love for algebra in common. At about half past two we left the pub, and I was happy to fall asleep at three. You would think! That night Gordon - the guy I got my room from - was there for two days, and he fell asleep in my bed, meaning I had to crash on the sofa. That obviously meant I was awake when the first guy used the kitchen, which was at about 9am. I was kind of happy about that since I hadn't wasted my whole day then. I enjoyed that afternoon at home, talking with my room mates, and watching them playing console games. I wasn't that into playing myself. In the evening we went in the City Center with Gordon and a friend of his to go to a club. We decided to go to Second Bridge which was kind of expensive, but just great. I had a really good time without being too drunk, and without spending too much money - if you can say that at 8GBP entrance. I arrived back home at around four, so most of my Sunday was filled by sitting around doing nothing. Luckily my first lecture started late on Monday, so I had that day to adjust my sleeping rhythm.

So my first lecture ever in another country arrived at quarter past four on this Monday. Algebraic Topology. I have the feeling that I have one of the best lecturers here, and it was really great. We were about ten people, and I was looking forward to my other lectures. Metric Spaces was directly after that lecture, so I did not have time to talk to Paul really much, I searched the room for a two hours marathon of Metric Spaces, and as I found it I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a room for about 200 people, and it was filled with 210 people as I arrived. I had to sit in the very last row, and really had troubles reading the blackboard. Also the Professor wrote really fast. I didn't like those two hours at all, but the stuff we did was really easy, so I do not worry about that lecture very much.

Where in Germany lectures usually are ninety minutes long, in England they are only fifty minutes long, and that were two lectures at a time. It is kind of weird to hear people complain, that they have three lectures in a row, in Germany I sometimes had four in a row which here would be six in a row. But if you are not used to it, maybe it is really that difficult.

Today I had my Advanced Group Theory lecture, which was in a small group as well. I really liked it, and I'm looking forward to learn more of it. Later today, I will have to attend my last Maths course, which is Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces. I am not sure what this will be like, but I suppose it will be crowded again.

I would like to add some pictures, but I think I have to wait for them to be uploaded to facebook since I didn't take a lot of pictures.

Conclusion: I had a great week, with a lot of things going on, I met some more people, and I enjoy the lectures so far, but my iPhone still isn't working.