The adventures continue!

What a journey I am already embarking on!  The past week has been spent settling into classes, which are really interesting.  I'm here researching material for my dissertation topic: What makes American Literature American, rather than just an extension of European Literature.  I'm taking Contemporary Native American Literature, taught by a native american teacher who's enthusiasm makes the 8am lecture time so worthwhile!  20th Century British Literature, taught by David Milovski, who in the first lecture made so many digs at the English I had to say at the end of class I was english... he has since ceased, but now assumes I know everything about English history. In that class we are currently reading Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent which while slow going is interesting.  Most interesting about that class though is the way in which American's perceive English history.  They seem to think we are thieving, invading tea drinkers... How funny...  Also American Drama, which is great, we have just read a realist play called The Rabbit Hole which was an amazing look into human nature and how we cope with loss.  I'm going to try and tie this in with trauma theory, studied last year in Critical Theory.  My final class is Ethnic Literature of the US, I struggle in this one, simply because my lecturer doesn't really have a personality.  His voice has climaxes, that's all I'll say.

Extra curricular activities through the past few days have been a trip to swim at horsetooth ridge:

This was incredible, freshwater reservoir with water as warm as out of the tap.  I loved it there, sunbathing, chilling out - good preparation for a massive house party we went to that night.  This party was great, mudwrestling, beer pong, table tennis, music and more red cups!!  It is safe to say that I am beer pong champion, now undefeated in 11 games!  That was saturday night!  Friday night I attended a smaller gathering at one of Tommy's old school friends.  This was a more subdued affair, but still good fun, though we left when someone suggested there were police sat outside watching the house:

Luckily they had found someone else to pull over, nevertheless we moved back to the dorms pretty quickly.  Yesterday I spend the day recovering from the night before, I think I'm actually going to stop drinking now and really get on the training hard.  I'm in a very lucky position to be able to use amazing gym facilities for free, and food I have already paid for actually has some healthy options, so I'm going to start making the most of it!  Getting used to the altitude has been tougher than expected, but I'm slowly starting to run a mile faster and faster.  We'll get there, c'moooon six pack.  Today I'm off to classes again, my schedule looks pretty good really:

I'll include a map of campus as well so you can see how huge it is:

My halls are the towers in the top right corner.  It takes a good half an hour to walk from one end to the other, luckily my classes are fairly near me, only fifteen minutes away! Wheey!  I thought I was going to have to buy a bike at one stage, but I can save myself that money as I just don't need one!  I think the cost of living her is cheaper than at home, because so much is included in the bill for the semester, a beastly $4462.  My student loan comes in in instalments, so I did have a mad panic about whether I could actually afford to be here.  I quick phonecall to mum and dad reassured me that I would be okay - and Grandma Hobbs (mothers' mother) is sending a cheque in dollars from her American bank account.  Things look like they will be okay, though I was really worried for a while!

Made plans last night for Labor Day long weekend - ROAD TRIP!  Going to hire a car and drive with 7 other people to Yellowstone, about a seven hour drive away, so excited!  Though I have my international license, you can't hire a car under 21, so I won't be able to drive it, not until march, but Alistair, one of the Aussie exchange students will drive it.  It will work out as being about $100 dollars for the car plus food (each) which I think is really cheap.  Friday - Monday will be an experience, can't wait to see some of America!

Dad - you need to get your skype sorted, because I'm dying without being able to chat to you here.  Mum - I would love a chat soon please :) Anytime you're free just send me a text and I'll hop online!
Also, thank god for Blackberry Messenger - there is no way I'd be able to get through this without being able to talk to my special girl, this way I only feel like she's a moment away, which makes a big difference!  I do miss home though, now again again it sweeps across me.  Loving it here still, good friends, lovely working environment.  All I need now is matt to get his arse into gear and onto XBox now and again so I can chat to him!

Much love to you all, will try and get some pictures of campus up later today.
xxx
(oh and for those of you who are confused by computers - if you want to see the pictures bigger, just click on them)

This was the view from Tommy's house of the twin peaks... awesome eh!?

Also, late additions are the volleyball game we went to see:

And the college bronze ram (one of them):

And also the American football team training, who on our first wander of the campus had these water BATH boys, filling these tanks with ice for their ice bath... Also found out that they get paid to play...

Five Days In.

I left you last as I was about to hit the gym for the first time!  EPIC!  This gym is huge, two floors of cardio and weight machines, including a separate huge gymnasium for basketball which has a 200m track running around the top, where the first floor would be!  I will include a picture as soon as I get one!  Hit it a bit too hard first time, tried rowing on the brand new concept2s but they are the ones on the slides and I don't know why but I was appalling on them!  I quickly resigned myself to the realms of the big men, the free weights room.  There are several gyms on the university campus, this one:

and two others.  The free weights we are able to use are in a room similar to this, but slightly smaller.  The guys that use this room are huge, some veins are as big as my fingers - I think steroid abuse is fairly common here in the states!  I went pretty hard on my first attempt and my chest has been crying ever since - I'm sure it will get over it!

On saturday night there was a "County Fair" type event for the twin towers that are Westfall and Durward halls, there included a rock painting stall - paint a rock that you can use as a doorstop.  We painted ours to look like our RA, Joe:

Joe is awesome, he's a journalism student and just turned 21.  It's weird out here because everyone seems a lot older than they are - Tommy and I are both older than many of the RA's here, Bri (from the floor above) has only just turned 20.  Perhaps drinking at a younger age keeps you young...  Bri was fairly angry at us for getting her with whipped cream pies at this county fair, I'm still finding bits of "revenge cream" in my ears and it's monday!  At about 9.30 we wandered down to the bus station to get a free bus to target - along with about a million other people it seemed.  Grant was there and we ended up not going but just laughing at everyone who was so eager to go.  We skipped it and wandered into town with Lindsey and Jasmine to a Hookah bar (shisha in England):

This was pretty cool, a very chilled out and relaxed place to go.  Not really a big fan on the Hookah - it just tasted a bit wrong - but you could have as much tea as you liked and the tea was goood!  Here we all got to know each other pretty well, I get the feeling that Lindsay and Jasmine will be pretty good friends here!  We got back at about half past one - Tommy returned about ten minutes later, and waking up the next morning I realised my jetlag has subsided, hello full nights sleep!

Yesterday I was invited to accompany Tommy in getting a T.V for our room! After wandering to Safeway to buy bits and bobs:

And this is where I'm living:

We were then off to Sam's club - basically a massive warehouse which you have to be a member to buy things from.  Tommy bought a 32 inch beast and I bought an xbox for the room, so roll on international CoD!  On the way back from dropping those at the room we stopped off at Horsetooth ridge, an amazing place!  Stunning canyon in the foothills of the rockies with an incredible view:

Then off to Tommy's for a wonderful meal cooked by his mum with his sister and brother in law.  Tommy only lives about ten minutes down the road and you can tell that his mum is more comfortable in being near to her boy because of it.  They are a wonderful family, much like my own, so I felt very at home.  We watched Avatar on bluray on their massive screen in their gorgeous home - mindblowing film and incredible quality in high def!  I took a photo of them so you can put faces to names!

The two dogs are still only puppies, Gretchen and Max, but her very lovable - I'm not a dog person but these guys were great, no barking or biting, just lots of licking!  They reminded me of me haha!  After the film we returned back to ColoState and set up the T.V and sat with Joe and Grant and watched 8Mile - man I love that film.  Sleep came quickly!

This morning I was up and about for breakfast and my first day of classes.  So far I have had 20th Century British Fiction and Ethnic Writing of the US.  Interesting so far, and this afternoon I have got American drama... actually, I have to go to that NOW!  So I must dash.  Been a homesick day today, but having had a chat with my special someone I feel somewhat brighter... weird how one person can so affect you.

Will update about classes in detail asap!

love to all reading
xxx

What a beginning!

Well the time has come!  Here I am, three days into my adventure to Colorado State University; Fort Collins!  I arrived on Tuesday evening after an arduous and tiring journey through which I sat next to a crazy lady who was overly-proud of her obsession with Lady Gaga; a fat man who had to extend the plane belt to it's maximum, and both the international and internal flights I endured being the middle seat.  Joy!  Even so, the though that I was about to embark on something I had been planning and thinking about for the last two years kept me going, and before long I made it to Denver International Airport.  There I was met by Robert Booker, aka "The Colonel":

He directed us to the relevant bus (after Polly, Becki and me consumed a "Taco Bell") and we were on our way to Fort Collins - an hour and fifteen minutes away, our excitement kept us alive, but we all knew we would crash very soon!  I travelled with Polly and Alan (also from Leicester University), Becki from Swansea Uni, Grant and Joe, both of whom are from Oz.  They had been travelling for 23 hours and had somehow managed to arrive 45 minutes before they had even left...!

I moved into my room that evening and was greeted with this view:

 But I didn't do any unpacking as Grant and I went straight out for some food - a mexican fast food place called "Qdoba".  We both ordered a burrito the size of a newborn child and dove in.  It was too much and we took the remains home.  I then settled down after a shower and ablute for some kip.  Jet lag didn't let my body clock down, and, just like the last three nights, I awoke before the sun had risen.  I finally crawled out of bed at 6, ate the remains of my burrito and taco and went for a run... for a little bit anyway, before the effects of  the altitude kicked in - I'm pretty sure I had a cardiac arrest at that point... owh!  After which I met the others and we all went to a nearby bagel shop for some breakfast and walked to our Exchange Student Orientation in which we sorted Immigration, Immunisation and even had a trip to Walmart to purchase bedding and other essentials (like shower gel etc).  I then set up my US bank account and paid in all the money and travellers' cheques I had - $380 dollars in total!  Dinner that night merely consisted of the thought of food as I missed dinner at one of the dining halls thanks to Polly and her indecision.  Found a running buddy in her RA (like an older student but more responsible for the smooth running of the dorm), Melissa who has invited me to go jogging around the mountains (if I ever get used to this bloody altitude)  Sleep was short again that night thanks to my body clock, though I didn't go running this time.  

Yesterday was much like the day before it, orientation, though we quickly realised that we had heard it all the day before and the sentence "I'll speak slowly because I know your english is still improving" showed us that this orientation was directed at a different kind of international student!  The big part of yesterday was Tommy moving in, my roomie!  Tommy's great - plays guitar, loves life and is a really funny guy!  We're sure that actually we must have answered the questions on the "Student personality evaluation form" with identical answers - we're very similar.  We are already known as Tommy and Jack!  His family moved him in at about 9am yesterday and I spoke with them for a while.  They are lovely people, Cyndi (Mum), Larry (Dad and retired FBI agent!) and Jaqueline (older sister), they made me feel very welcome and have said I am always welcome in their home.  Great!  Home cooked meals here I come!  I will probably take them up on that as soon as homesickness kicks in - I am reassured by grant that it will do in about the third week...  I certainly do miss many people.  We then went to a carnival last night which was the Rams (the CSU mascot) welcome party for all new students, 5000 of them in total and it was magnificent!  Marching band, cheerleaders and an incredible atmosphere, I loved it and had difficulty picking my jaw off the floor.  As international (british and aussie) kids we are the centre of attention and we have photos taken with us and are generally loved by all.  What a delight!  A large group of sophomores (second year students) had a group picture with Grant and I which was funny:

The opening ceremony was incredible:

There were three more sides of the stadium just like this!  I love it here, the people are so nice!  Im sat in a great coffee shop we discovered last night on our wanders and am about to hit the new gym with grant!  Exciting times!  Will probably have forgotten something, but will update later!

All my love, whoever reads this, Jack x

ps.  This is a photograph I took from my window last night!