YOLLO- You Only Live in London Once

Posted by Eileen Robinson on Tuesday, October 9, 2012 in General Information, Study Abroad.

I’m finally settled in London, y’all! My class schedule has been approved, I’ve visited most of the touristy sites, and I’ve even joined a sports team (bet you’ll never guess which one).

It’s pretty funny to read all the posts about fall break, since I’ve only been in classes for a week…that’s right, classes started on October 1^st. Also, most of the courses just meet once a week for two hours, so I’m usually done by noon. That’s not to say I’m done with work that early though, because I head to my favorite library (the Science library, shocker) and get some reading done. The academic system here is totally different and most of my classes have only one or two grades—which is good and bad. I’m still trying to figure out how much reading to do on my own outside of class, but the coursework has been really interesting and I posted a pic of my schedule if you’re curious.

You’re probably wondering what I did with all that free time before classes started, and I would just say that we explored a lot. I live with 8 other Americans in my flat (3 from Vandy!) and groups of us went to the London Eye, the National Science Museum, saw Les Mis, visited Brighton for the weekend etc. I feel like I have a good grip on navigating the tube and getting around the city now!

So on one of our first days here, UCL had a big organization fair where you could sign up for a bunch of listservs and try out different clubs and societies. A few of my friends have joined theatre, tennis, cross country, and even the chocolate society, but I decided to join cheerleading! I know that might sound really random, but I used to do competitive cheerleading and when I heard about the squad here, it sounded pretty similar. I’ve been to the first few practices and they’ve been so much fun! I got my backhandspring back pretty easily and the practices have been great workouts. I’m excited to see what our routine will be like and to bond with some more Brits.

And now I’m off to celebrate a friend’s birthday but here are a few words/phrases that ALL Brits use:

-queue = line (like “are you guys waiting in the queue?”)

-uni = university or college

-fresher = freshman (even emails from UCL use this term)

-crisps = potato chips

-fit = attractive/hot

-cuppa = cup of tea

-module = class