Second Week Randoms

Second Week

Laundry -I did laundry today! Doing laundry is a bit of an effort at AC but mine desperately needed to be done after camp. What you have to do is bring your dirty clothes in a bag, detergent and change all the way to the castle. It’s 1.80 for the wash and then 20p for the dryer (though it doesn’t work particularly well so they recommend putting it in two to three times. It takes 40 minutes for the wash and 20 minutes for one session of the drying. So what I did was put my clothes in right before lunch, changed to the dryer after lunch and then came back in an hour – very organized! Doing laundry makes you feel very accomplished.

I also went into town with one of my dorm mates and a girl from Sunley house this afternoon. We left at about 4 – it took us 25 minutes to walk there. We bought milk, cereal, detergent etc at the Co-Op and then had an amazing meal at the Italian restaurant. We then took the taxi back (since we had heavy bags) which was 5 pounds- but between us, it was worth the price. I thought it was a really nice Sunday evening, may become a regular thing!

Wifi- There is none. Our school has two ICT labs, one in the library and one in the Science block and four computers in each house with Internet (but you can’t put memory sticks in those ones so if you’re transferring things from your personal lap top -as I am- it’s a trek). Though it’s been busy here and I assume I’ll get better at it. It’ll make me less dependent on the computer and stuck on it when I’m home.

Food- I may become a vegetarian at school. The cold plates of humus/tuna with crackers and salad seem to be the best option (though on Friday’s apparently have amazing fish and chips!). And hopefully it’ll make me more healthy here as there are just so many people with sweet treats practically force feeding me- what to do. Most of the second years complain about the food, and it’s not dreadful but they say having the same thing every week is repetitively dreadful – which is understandable.

Gym- Tonight I went to the gym! It’s quite a nice gym, got new equipment over the summer. There’s modern a modern treadmill, stepper, elliptical, rowing machine and two bikes. There’s also a ton of weight machines but I don’t know their names. It’s not a huge room though so if there are a lot of people in there it can be quite crowded. Even so I hope to go three or four times a week just to keep fit!

Having an early night tonight (check in is at 10:15 on weekdays and 11:15 on weekends). I was just in the day room having a lovely conversation with one of my second years - a girl in my buddy dorm named Manin. She’s no doubt on the top five sweetest people I’ve ever met. Manin’s from Cambodia, she’s an orphan who has a sponsor family who pays her tuition and other expenses at the school. I’m really interested in hearing more of her story, she inspires me.

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Cardiff- Went into Cardiff yesterday for our free day. There must have been at least 50 students waiting for the bus (that never showed so some people took taxi's into Llantwit to catch the train, others walked and caught the train the hour later- as I did). It's about a 40 minutes train ride into Cardiff Central, but if you're surrounded by people your age it seems to go by in 5 minutes. When there I picked up a few things from WH Smith, had a great lunch and got a few decorations for my corner of the room. It was a great day with good food!

Codes- Starting classes today (31/08/11), at AC they actually call them Codes. I was going to try and put an electronic copy on my blog... but for the time being it's disappeared from my inbox. We'll see how the day goes.