The daily commute

Everyday thousands of students cycle into campus despite living a short walk away. They are everywhere getting in pedestrians and motorists ways. Campus has lots of cycling lanes but every time you have to cross them you take your own life into your hands, running across them every time there is a 2 second gap. The cyclists never stop unless they are pretty sure they are going to hit someone. I was just leaving campus the other day when Oz called me and the distraction caused me to almost get run over, all Oz heard was "shit!".

Until yesterday I hadn't braved joining in with the cyclists, I valued my life too much, but I was running late for classes that always started early and so didn't feel I had much choice. Damn it was scary and frustrating, no one cycles that quickly, they frequently have the phone jammed under their ears chatting away (some Americans rarely seem to be without a phone attached to them, they can talk for hours, I can manage 2 minutes at most). They also don't understand how to use roundabouts, there are v.few in the US, but the campus cycle routes have several, they don't realise that if you're going to turn off you need to be in the outside and this frequently results in collisions or halts.

Cyclists reign in Isla Vista (the area next to campus where most students live), they pay no attention to the rules of the road, never stop when there is a stop sign and never ever signal. I'm very glad not to be a driver as they have an unofficial speed limit of 20 mph otherwise they will kill the cyclists who zooms straight across the intersection without looking. I dread to think what happens when someone unused to IV drives around it.

Added to the problems of errant cyclists there are the pedestrians who walk in the middle of the road. This is partially due to the fact that the sidewalks either don't exist or randomly stop and start - it is just easier to walk in the middle of the road. There is a running joke that if you want to spot freshmen (first years) just see who is walking on the sidewalk.

At night everything becomes a lot more difficult, the roads aren't that well lit, cyclists don't use lights and cars have to crawl around. I get quite scared about cycling at night, but then I too don't have lights and stick to the cycling lanes whenever possible.

If I survive this year without being hit it will be impressive.

Classes and extracurricular activites

My classes started on Thursday and so far they've been a very mixed bag. My first ever American lecture felt much more like a sixth form class than a lecture - there are only 35 people in the class and the lecturer expects us to constantly ask questions. It was an introductory lecture and so I learnt nothing besides the syllabus. The first thing he actually taught us was that the plural of syllabus was not syllabi because putting an "i" on the end of a word to pluralise it was a Latin thing and syllabus was originally Greek, and this was a Religious Studies class. Another interesting but largely useless fact to add to my collection.

My second lecture was no where near as fun as my first, instead of learning irrelevent facts I was learning Arabic (which you could argue for most people is irrelevent) and they went straight into it, no introductory lecture. I walked in on time but the class had already started and there were no seats left, in fact several people were already standing up. I had to stand too close to the board and at a bad angle so I could see very little of what he was writing, and I was expected to copy it. Again it was more like a class than a lecture, he asked us all random questions and so we were expected to be on the ball all the time, no chance for a sneaky nap in this class. I actually learnt how to daydream first in French class, but I must fight the impulse in Arabic. I'm used to finding classes quite easy and this blows me away, it is so difficult, but it is good to really struggle at times and so I shall persevere. Incidently having done some of the homework (all lectures have given me homework already) I can now spell and pronounce my first word - door, which I'm sure will prove really useful. "Shut that baab!"

Yesterday I had what I would describe as my first real lecture, Introduction to Cultural Anthroplogy, with 900 other students! I got in a few minutes early (I'm learning quickly that spaces fill up fast and lectures start early) to a v.large and fairly packed lecture theatre. I actually heard someone complain that all the seats at the front are taken! I'm used to hearing the opposite. I found a seat fairly easily next to some freshman girl who seemed adverse to any form of conversation, but a lot of other people weren't as lucky as I was and had to spend quite a while walking around looking in vain for a single seat by itself and if they found one they had to squeeze past lots of people to get there. I felt particularly sorry for one guy who clearly had problems socialising (you can often just tell by how they look - how they hold themselves, the clothes they where, etc, this guy had a really bad mullet which is saying something) and it took him ages to find a seat, but at least he got one, not everyone was so lucky. The lecture started with a clip of Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street which is usually a good omen, however not in this case, it was a really tedious introductory lecture and I was surrounded by freshmen and felt old (which incedently made a nice change - being under 21 I'm constantly made to feel young). I was very glad to get out of there. Hopefully it will improve soon.

After all that hardwork some extracurricular activities were in order and at a boring coffee afternoon with other international students I got invited to a birthday party and how could I refuse? But I didn't go straight to the party, I went to an amateur improvisation comedy club first, it was really funny, after an hour and a half of comedy that included a guy appearing from between some poor girls legs, horror stories from a political rally and racoons the show ended and I went to the party.

None of my close friends were there when I arrived and I ended up talking to an Aussie bloke for ages, I'd met him a few times before and knew he was a nice guy but somehow he morphed in front of my eyes into a hot nice guy, which is always appreciated and I'm pleased to say (particularly to my concerned gran) that it wasn't alcohol making that happen, I only had a single beer. The party ended when the host decided she wanted to go down to DP (the main party street) and crash a party so we were kicked out of the apartment. Oz and I ended up going with a big group to DP but felt awkward about the crashing, so we ended up walking down to the beach (I love living so close to the ocean!) and paddling before stargazing. It is concerning that Oz, who was brought up in the southern hemisphere was able to recognise constellations that I couldn't. I think I need to do some more stargazing, preferably with a book to guide me. Eventually we wandered back to mine, arranged to meet again the next day and said goodbye. Somehow it was 1.30am, last thing I knew it was 11pm.

After not getting nearly enough sleep I awoke at the bright and early time of 9am and got ready to go cycling in the mountains with Oz. Having just got a bike (with gears!) I was dying to try it out and Oz happens to be a keen cyclist. When we got to the foothills I quickly realised that my gears were useless, the hills weren't that steep but it was really hard work. I'm used to having a cog that goes lower than my new bike and it was nightmareish. There was Oz with his flash mountain bike showing off and there I was red in the face and struggling for breath, which was attractive! Our map was fairly useless, it was free and so there were ads covering the mountains. The first road we tried turned out to be a dead end at the foothills, but going down I learned a valuable lesson about my bike - the breaks were too loose. I jammed my breaks on full but the bike would not stop so I yelled "shit!shit!shit!shit!" in an attempt to warn Oz but he didn't understand what I was saying and it was only when the road went uphill slightly and I came to a halt that he understood and was able to tell me exactly what was wrong, which was useful but did not fix them.

We decided to go on up the mountains regardless and eventually found the right path but I gave up pushed my bike fairly quickly - I felt it was better than being sick. We didn't make it even that close to the real mountains but found a beautiful view, sat down and chatted. It was really nice, and once again time elapsed very quickly. I was not overly excited to get back on the bikes and return when we decided to, more because I was saddle sore than anything else, I need a new saddle if I intend to do anymore real cycling. When we eventually got back to his to have lunch I was very grateful to disembark.

I had planned to do lots of homework, but I'm too tired after the ride and so have been wasting away the rest of my afternoon on the internet. Arabic can always wait another day.