And so it begins

After far too much stress in the past few weeks, I've finally made it back to St Andrews. At least now I can say I know the ins and outs of applying for a UK Student Visa...? I'm hoping that my luck has turned around now, because that really was a nightmare. Of course the biometrics center that I went to on the day that I went to it would have a system failure causing a delay in my visa approval, why on earth would I expect different? It just would have been too easy otherwise. In any case, all is sorted now; I have a visa, I made it into the country, and I was able to make up all the 'important' things I missed last week.

I arrived last weekend, and despite only having 2 suitcases, a backpack, and another carry-on bag along with a friend to help, decided it would be best to take a taxi from the bus station to my flat. Good decision. How I managed to drag that amount of luggage simply between baggage claim and the bus stop outside the airport by myself is somewhat unimaginable. Anyways, I got to my flat just as the residence managers were helping someone else with their keys, so I only had to wait a few minutes for them to retrieve my keys from the office across the street (rather than me looking aimlessly around for the office after getting maybe 2 hours of sleep over the past 24 hours...that probably wouldn't have gone so well). I really enjoy my flat. My room is one of the bigger ones, set towards the back, with my own sort of private hallway, and even my own bathroom! The downside, however, is I have a drafty window just above the heater, so they seem to cancel each other out, hmm... Perhaps I will invest in a space heater. I have ten flatmates at the moment (though there are meant to be two more...?), and all seem to be really wonderful people. We often have good chats in the kitchen around meal times, and by good I mean hilarious, and people seem to tidy up after themselves enough so far. It's like a 'Real World' scenerio though, 13 strangers coming together to live in a house... While my walls are still a bit bare for my liking, I am beginning to feel settled in at last.

So over the past week I've really just been making sure everything is in order, from matriculating to buying notepads, as well as catching up with old friends. It hasn't been stressful, but I certainly haven't stopped moving since I got here. I met with my supervisor earlier this week. I'm really excited to start my research, but also a little overwhelmed because I really don't know where to begin...next week's problem! I have my own desk by the window in the brand new Medical and Biological Sciences Building, and I'm going to be a lab demonstrator for first year biology twice a week (kind of like a lab TA position), which means I give marks to about 30 students. Pretty exciting stuff.

I am going to try to actually keep up with this blog (unlike the last time I was here and updated about once every few months...oops!). So all will be able to follow my exciting moments, research woes, and the good and bad of living with 12 other people. Oh, and I'll try to post pictures up here as well (though I must admit I haven't taken any since I've been here yet). More to come...