Slowdown

Well, the initial mad scramble of socialising is over now, and things are winding down. I was right: classes don't begin until next week, but that suits me. The last couple of days have been a blur of queueing and frustration. I enrolled on Monday after queueing for an hour outside the passport photo machine and they didn't even ask for my photos. Gah! I then had to queue to pay a bench fee for lab coats and stuff, but the line was so long, and I didn't have the cheque anyway, so I gave up and went away. Some of this really should have been organised better. On Monday night, I went out with my flatmate, a Swedish guy called Michael, on a pub crawl organised by the college. Of course this made registration on Tuesday so much easier, but the queues were mercifully short this time. Oh, and before you ask, yes, you would think enrolling is the same as registering, and yes, you would think that they would combine the two procedures into one, but no, not around here.

Last night was quiet, except for the occasional bit of noise outside my flat. I'm living in on-campus accommodation and apart from the mature/international students that I live with, the rest of the area seems to be populated by 18 year olds. Which can be annoying, especially when there is drunken giggling out in the square at 12 at night. Yes, I'm showing my age, but Christ, at least I can handle my drink to the extent that I don't wake up a whole area when drunk, or at least not intentionally. I'll give it some time, as we are still in the first week of term, but after that...

Today I went to the freshers fair and joined the Brighton LGBT society, amongst others. There is a pub crawl for that next Tuesday, I believe. I won't go out until then. Especially since the first installment of my accommodation payment is due on October 12th. Oh, and did I mention that I underestimated that amount by a factor of, oh, 50%? You can understand my terror. I need to get to get set up for a bank account here quickly. And then get a loan, even more quickly.
After the freshers fair, I met up with Tess and Jess, two American girls. They had been to a march for peace in town, as Tony Blair was visiting. Unfortunately by the time I got there, it was winding down. Some other time maybe. It seems that I'm getting back in touch with my student protestor roots. This is good.

After that, I left them and went to the cinema to see The Village. M. Night Shyamalam has now established a pattern for himself that he seems happy to stick to. Yes, I'm talking about the twist/revelation that comes at the end. This worked very well for the Sixth Sense, was rather forced for Unbreakable, and merely added to the storyline for Signs. In this one, it works in two ways, one which is a bit ropey, and one which is quite effective, though overall the story drags a bit in places. His use of music in film is also good, with lots of discordant screeching strings in all the right places. Critics are starting to say that he is beginning to repeat himself, and they're right, but plenty of filmmakers have done this and still managed to entertain well. In each of Shyamalam's films, there is always some kind of incidence of flawed humanity taking place alongside the suspense, and it makes for an interesting story.

Interesting point: Bruce Willis was in the Sixth Sense, and then in it's successor, Unbreakable. Joaquin Phoenix was in Signs, and now in the next consecutive film The Village. A pattern seems to be emerging. I've gotten to like Phoenix, and he was good in this. Also, William Hurt was good as the patriarchal figure, though maybe it was the beard. Very Benjamin Harrison.

Got my timetable sorted, which is reasonable compared to what it was like when I was doing Engineering. 14 hours on average for the first semester, and 17 hours for the second. When I was in Engineering it was like 30-35 hours a week.

Lastly, I fear my drinking over the last few days has caught up with me: The whole of my upper body is covered in hives. I'm almost certain that's it's my system saying 'No More Booze!'. I read once that this happened to Robert Smith out of the Cure. A more prosaic explanation could be that I'm allergic to the soap I am currently using, but that doesn't explain why they've suddenly appeared out of nowhere. If they don't go away in the next few days, off to the doctor I go.

Later...