and i’m really sorry so i’m going to spend the next however long it takes catching everyone up on what i’ve been doing. last we spoke it was my birthday and i was going out to the club with my flatmates… so i went to this club mission which was packed. i’ve never seen so many people in one club ever. it was like they were trying to deliberately push their fire limit and/or surpass it because i think they did. i did red bull/vodkas all night long because that’s what the boys were buying me. i ended up losing my friends like immediately into the club but met this guy george who ended up wandering around with me looking for people until i found ben and toto, two guys from res, and spent the night with them. eventually i managed to find holly and frankie, who are two girls i’ve made friends with, and then we lost frankie so holly and i spent the rest of the night together until she wanted to go to her boyfriends so i went back to res with some other international students. i didn’t spend a lot of time dancing because well, i was spending so much time looking for people and wandering around. i guess that’s the downside to having so many people there. could’ve been funner but it wasn’t a huge bust. the next day i met tom my mentor who showed me around leeds uni. we made plans to go to fruity which is the school club, he had already bought us tickets. oh, when i say us he had another mentee which is this girl michelle who is also from waterloo and lives in my residence complex. my residence consists of about 10 buildings i think and each individual building is a ‘house’ with like 75 people in it. anyways so we made plans to remeet for fruity at ten at the terrace which is the school bar, or one of them. according to tom this is where people go to have pints before class - because that’s acceptable here apparently. anyways so i met up with my mum afterwards, can’t quite remember what we did but chances are we went into city center and shopped. afterwards we came back to my dorm and i got ready. so i was supposed to meet tom in the terrace at 10 so i got there and i wanted to drop off my coat - well, as it turns out you can’t go out once you go into the club and coat check is in the club. so i had to text tom to tell him to find me because i was stuck in the club. i ended up meeting up with michelle and was introduced to these other canadians - matt, evan, candice, chuck and some other asian whose name i can’t remember but he goes to waterloo (i’m terrible i know). we all hung out and did some shots together when matt and i started talking. we ended up chilling in the hallway between clubs. the way fruity is set up is that it’s one massive club but there’s like 4 separate ‘rooms’ in it that play different music. i suppose this is the way normal clubs are and not like… phils. anyways so we were in the hallway chilling and like halfway through our conversation matt was all like ‘can i see you again? i really like you.’ and saying things like that. it was flattering albeit rather sudden (it had been 40 minutes!) he was talking about long-term stuff and i was like 8| i’ve been in the country for like 5 days, calm down. i was sort’ve saved when tom showed up and introduced me to will and gaz who are his flatmates. matt slipped off to get a drink and tom offered to buy me a drink upstairs so i went with him and i met tom, his other flatmate. we all were doing jagerbombs, i never paid for one because the boys insisted on paying for mine and i couldn’t buy a round once. we went to dance afterward which was hilarious. i love that british boys aren’t ashamed to dance here. they were just going to town and i mean more than just like… standing there and swaying like boys do at home. they were like jokingly grinding and dancing with each other. they’re a lot more comfortable with themselves here than boys at home are which is nice. plus it was great to just ‘have a laugh’ and ‘take the piss’ out of everything <—- i’m becoming british! i spent most of the night talking to tom and his flatmates, laughing and joking it was brilliant. eventually though tom disappeared and i was left with tom, his flatmate, and gaz. we were joined by candice who had lost the others and we went out for a smoke when michelle joined us, i think she lost the others too. we all stood outside and the boys tried to teach us how to talk in a proper british accent instead of the butchered americanized one we do here. tom and i got talking about movies/music/comedians and i brought up russell peters and he suggested we go back to his house to watch it because gaz hadn’t seen it. so they finished their fag (!!) and we were going to get one more shot but the bars were closed so we decided to leave and go to escobar. turns out tom is banned from escobar for reasons no one knew… so we ended up back at his house where will and ben (one of tom’s friends) were chilling having left fruity. we all sat around talking until tom asked if i was going to bed with him. so i went. THE NEXT MORNING… turns out michelle and candice hadn’t left which was super awkward because i just assumed they’d figure out i wasn’t coming down and get a taxi. apparently not. so they had slept on the couch and i felt so terrible for that because i can’t imagine being cramped on the couch is all that comfortable. i hadn’t gotten any sleep because tom and i had, legit, talked so much. we kept trying to sleep but i was too wired still from the booze and my mind was just running like mad so sleep just wasn’t happening. i got a cab with michelle back to res to find my mum awake and probably not too pleased about me spending the night out. i had a lot of fun so i tried not too feel too bad but i still felt bad for so many things - the girls on the couch, running out on tom when he asked me to stay, mum worrying and not getting any sleep… but when i got there mum didn’t say anything but told me to sleep… which of course i felt bad about too because it was her last full day there and we were supposed to do a ton of stuff. i woke up like two hours later and we got ready to go out. while we were putting on our makeup/doing hair i had my ipod going and slipping through my fingers started playing and we had this moment of ‘oh shit this applies so much’ and i unno that’s when it sort’ve hit me my mum would be leaving the next day. i know i’m like an adult now but she’s my best mate and it’s hard for me not having her here. most especially with the time difference, i think of things to tell her and then realize it’s like not even morning there so i can’t just email her and expect a reply. i can’t skype her until like 10 and by then i’m exhausted so i’m miserable and… it’s hard for now but we’re working on it. anyways so then we spent the day out, went to see W.E which i really enjoyed but i don’t think she liked and we had dinner and came back here. it wasn’t as fun-filled as i’m sure she had hoped for and i feel bad for that but at least i spent some time with my mummy before she left. the next day we had to get up and go to the train station, we both cried, it was hard. i needed to make myself ‘feel normal’ so i went to the movies by myself and saw shame because i had wanted to. sure enough it took my mind off everything and i wasn’t feeling too bad anymore. the next day was the first day of school which was… interesting. i had to change my modules and here apparently you can’t do anything online you have to go to the school thats offering the class have them approve you then go to the school you’re dropping the class from to have that approved and then you have to take it to your parent school because they’re the one who makes the final change online. it was super complicated, i had no idea where i was going and there was a random torrential downpour for like an hour. this happens a lot here - the sky will open up and rain like mad and then just stop. it’s annoying because it leaves you cold to the bone for the rest of the day. anyways i finally managed to find the school i wanted to take the course in (forensic psychology) and got to english to drop british new wave cinema and the professor there who needed to sign off for me goes ‘oh i have a birthday party can you come back in an hour?’ …it’s 2 in the afternoon. well, i didn’t cos i had class at 3. which i walked into like the class before like a stupid frosh which was GREAT. not. apparently no one comes before the class is started, everyone comes right at the time. anyways i sat there for 30 minutes, no one showed up apparently the class was cancelled though i had double checked the room was booked for my class and it was so that was awesome. i ended up waiting around because my next class was in that room anyways so there was no point in leaving. i finished up my classes and met up with my mentor tom for a pint at the pub. we chatted for an hour and then i went back to my room and spent the night in. tuesday i texted matt the guy i met on friday and he asked if i wanted to go out to the eldon for international night. we ended up going out to the pub for fish and chips and then went back to his res to chill. he apparently was pissed at me when he found out i had gone back to tom’s with him on friday and had contemplated not answering my text that day because of it… cool story bro. anyways, we met up with candice and went to remy’s to predrink. i got to meet chloe and paige who are these girls from western who have been here since september and we clicked so well right away chloe has invited me on all her trips abroad to europe so we’ll be going to poland next month and dublin in march and perhaps morocco if i have the money for it. we all went out to the eldon after predrinking and i got to meet this cool guy named alex from germany for an hour and then i met a bunch of brits. we decided we were going to see the artist next week so that should be fun. wednesday was recovery day, i didn’t do anything but stay in my room like the antisocial freak i am. thursday was australia day so i went to class and rushed home to change into my bathing suit and then went to walkabout which is an australian bar in city centre. i spent the night with chloe and a bunch of her flatmates which was awesome. got utterly pissed, there was a bouncy castle IN THE PUB. it was amazing and i’ll probably never see something like that again. after 8 hours of straight drinking i headed home and crashed because i had to be up at 8 am. friday i got up and dragged myself to my tutorial which was a bit hard to say the least. but the tutorial was interesting, too bad i hadn’t done the homework for it haha. good at bs though so i don’t think she knew. i went to the library with holly and did some school work and went back to the rezzie where she made me a ‘proper british tea’. haha she also invited me to her house end of feb/beginning of march for her brother’s birthday and said she’d show me around london like a proper londoner which would be nice. hung out for a bit and then got ready. i went out to tom’s to predrink where i was made fun of at every turn for having hooked up with their flatmate, apparently this is common knowledge whom they tell everyone - good to know *embarrassed face*. i played fifa with tom, got my ass handed to me at 9-0 which was horrible so i need to practice and go back to kick his ass later. we went out to his friend’s house. we played mario kart which again, my ass was kicked (seriously i shouldn’t be this rusty with video games but frankly i can’t remember the last time i played). we then went to the old bar at the union to predrink. all chatted before heading off to halo for the dancing. i was fairly drunk by then so it was a bit of a messy night. retrospectively there’s nothing really to be ashamed of i just broke some of my own personal rules which is a bugger. finally went back to rez at 3 though which was awful because i had to be up at 8 for liverpool this morning. liverpool is beautiful, if you ever get the chance to go do it because it’s a wonderful city. i just wish i had had more time to be there because i hardly did anything that i wanted to. we did the beatles story museum and a city tour bus and then the liverpool museum but that was it. i was going around with this guy chris from uganda who was really nice. we made plans to go back to liverpool so i can see the chelsea v everton game and do more stuff in liverpool so hopefully that all falls together which would be nice. so far i’m having a ton of fun and exceeding my own expectations for socialness. i’m surprised i’ve been able to keep up this much because usually i have to take a break and end up getting anti-social for like a full week but iunno, something about this atmosphere actually makes me wanna go out and do stuff.