Apologies for the absence

The blog has been appallingly neglected of late, for which I apologise. I am now more or less safely ensconced in the Berkeley way of life, which essentially means:

My academic schedule has jumped from six to fourteen hours of contact time a week, which isn’t really that that much in terms of a reasonable working week, and is still considerably less than I had to do in primary school. Unlike primary school however, everyone here is alarmingly intelligent. I was sitting with a maths student earlier today who explained to me that out of all the people at Berkeley, a high percentage genuinely believe they got in by accident. Currently I am feeling well within that percentage. When not mindlessly flailing to keep my head above water I sit with my books and try to work through the readings required for my seminars and lectures: dredging up the meagre facts from my Politics A-Level, which now seems so much longer than three years ago, and faltering at poetry devices which seemed so simple on the other side of the Atlantic. Everyone tells me it will get easier with time, though, so I’m remaining optimistic. 

Between classes and reading, I ‘hit the gym’. One of the perks of campus life is definitely the fitness memberships. The proportions of people at Berkeley defy all the laws of physics and biology. On average I would call the boys about a foot taller and broader than those back home, and the girls walk around in (and for the best part manage to carry off) scraps of material less durable than most variations of flimsy British underwear. Not to be eclipsed, I head out to the gym most days with steely determination, and have so far experimented with ‘abs and back’ workouts, power yoga, jump rope circuit training, aqua aerobics, and Zumba. The yoga made me feel very floppy, and the circuit training and abs & back ruptured every single muscle along the lines of my arms and torso. Everything else fell somewhere between those two mediums. On slower days I wander along to one of the four on-campus swimming pools. My favourite is the Strawberry Canyon pool, set high above campus in the hills, with a startling view over the bay. More often than not I score a lane to myself- I’m assuming because most people can’t be bothered to hike so high on a hot afternoon- and pretend I’m a millionaire. UEA Sportspark it most certainly isn’t. 

In this fashion I’ve muddled through my first couple of weeks; unsure about whether I’m stressed out of my mind or simply visiting a luxury health spa. When I have more energy I will devote a blog post to my new pack friends, collectively known as the ‘Dinner Club’, attempt to describe a game of American Football, and possibly talk at some length about how I’m dealing with a long-distance relationship: but before all that I’ve still got to complete some of these federalist papers. Those Founding Fathers loved their preamble.