A day in the life of an international student

Sometimes you find yourself, at the end of a day, thinking about all that has happened that day.
Sometimes the amount of weird things that can happen to you in just one day amazes you….Yesterday was like that for me.

How on earth can you cram cold showers, getting lost on campus, grazed shins, exhibitions, extremely clean patches of grass, two (different) national dances, a group of Chinese people and porn under your mattress in ONE day…

Let me explain (this may take a while…):

First of all, our water hadn’t been heating up since the night before and we figured it was because of the restrictions on heating on campus. We only have heating at set times in ‘summer’ because they don’t want us to over-heat the place. Now we can only heat our rooms in the early morning and late afternoon.

So we thought that also meant we wouldn’t be able to get hot water during the day. We were already planning to set up riots to fight not being able to shower in the middle of the day (or night) when I went to ask about the winter schedules. Turned out that we should have hot water 24 hours a day and that “probably our boiler was just broken”. The lady behind the counter said that happens a lot and that I should fill in an official form and someone would come round to fix it. When I asked her when she thought that would happen she said: “Maybe today or tomorrow” :O

Thankfully the maintenance guy was right behind her and said he would come to fix it within the hour. Showering can be such bliss…

Nick (my American flat mate) and me were supposed to meet some of our friends at the Kelvingrove museum at noon to see an exhibition. Nick said he knew a shortcut to get there from the main building on campus (the castle on the hill) through the park. Realize that it takes us 20 minutes to walk from our accommodation to the castle and we had only had a cold shower to put our heads under… When we got there, the gate to the park below was closed. So we went to find another way out of campus. I was on my bike so I went ahead to see if there was a way out of there at the bottom of the hill. I thought the gate was open but it wasn’t. Imagine me riding up to the gate and having to stop quite suddenly…Result: 1 grazed shin.

What to do now? We just walked around campus for half an hour trying to find a way out…we ended up behind some dodgy hospital building finding a way out onto the street we had started from. We were an hour late to meet our friends at the exhibition. The exhibition turned out to be great. Benson is an epic photographer. http://www.harrybenson.com/

After that cultural experience I went to buy some random stuff at Boots. I also needed some laundry detergent, so I bought a large bottle of that. I put the plastic bag on the right handlebar of my precious bike and began the journey back home. At one point in that journey I have to stop cycling and get off my bike to cross a small patch of grass. As I did so, in some otherworldly way, the top of the laundry detergent bottle got stuck in the spokes of my front wheel. It just ripped it clean off! I wasn’t going fast or whatever but something was stuck so I looked down…and my detergent was gushing out of the bottle onto my bike and the grass… The lid was actually stuck in the spokes. Trying to save whatever was left in the bottle, I leaned over dropping almost all of the other stuff I was carrying. As soon as I got the bottle closed and my stuff off the ground I moved on as fast as I could…hope no one saw me. But you can be sure that, as soon as it rains, there’s going to be a VERY clean patch of grass somewhere in Glasgow. I should put my bike out when it rains too…it does smell very nice now :)

When I came home I went to the reception to ask about the hot water and an hour later I could take my well earned shower. (If only to get the detergent off my hands)

We know we have a Chinese girl flat mate since Friday…but we hadn’t seen her since meeting her in three seconds. We were starting to think we would never see her gain, as her door is closest to the exit so she can sneak in and out without being seen :). When meeting us she was sort of shy and apprehensive. Then today the whole kitchen was covered in traces of her presence…big cutting boards and enormous knives everywhere. There was also meat and vegetables all over the place, like she had just run away when hearing us come in. We joked that she definitely would be able to kill us with all those knives… and that maybe she would do that if we asked her to put her stuff in the fridge. Then right before I was off to go to dinner at Annemiekes’ I heard a tiny knock on my door. The Chinese girl (I can’t remember her name…I should write it down) was standing in front of my door trying out her best English and inviting me to have dinner with her and her friends. It was so sweet! She had four Chinese friends over and invited all of her flat mates to come and have a traditional festival dinner with them. Unfortunately I already had other plans, but it was a really nice offer. And my other flat mates said it was really good :).

After a very nice dinner at Annemiekes’ I went to the International Student Society Salsa night which turned out to be alright, but not very exciting. The Ceilidh (Scottish traditional dancing party) downstairs was just as medium-interesting so I went home quite early. Maybe I was just not in a partying mood yesterday.

I haven’t been sleeping very well on my spring-mattress here, since I’m not used to having steel spirals sticking into me (resulting in bruises on my thighs…grr), so someone gave me the tip to try turning my mattress over. Maybe that would help. When trying to turn over my mattress it got stuck on something…a porn DVD! What?! That wasn’t mine! I literally burst out laughing and ran into my flat mates’ room to show him what I found. I’m glad I found it now and not someone else in a couple of moths who will definitely think it was mine! Some poor horny guy is now reaching under his mattress and realizing he left his treasure under mine, haha!

If you have stuck with me for this LONG entry, I thank you. :) Can you imagine all of this happening in one day…it’s ridiculous! But interesting. We’re definitely not bored.