returning to normality

the wonderful thing about having rough starts is that it means there's only one way to go! up!

i'm lazy so here is my second week achievements compressed in bullet points. in the past week, I....

1. opened a bank account and paid the Michaelmas term rent. this helped me clear away all that angst about whether or not to stay. I'M STAYING. for once, the little voice in my head, and the little voice in my heart, are in unison...
2. finally made friends. (awww)
3. drank a lot of Vitamin water and orange juice in hopes of psycho-somatically convincing myself that i am immune to all those freshers-flu germs.
4. learned a lot about eighteenth century moral philosophy. ahh SO looking forward to her comments on my 1600 word attempt at analysing sympathy. how i hate philosophy.
5. showed M around Cambridge, rather blindly, as my knowledge of Cambridge is limited to like four colleges, the river, the supermarket and shops. we had waffles for lunch which is amazing in itself. we also poked around small quaint shops selling cute things like 'knit a sheep' kits and pretty notebooks...i'm so going back there this weekend to do a bit of early Christmas shopping!
6. attended ZERO english lectures.
7. somehow managed to miss a bunch of meetings for activities that i had signed up to do. but i'm definitely doing informal choir, and might get involved in editing for science magazine. (that's right - no more literary fluffiness. and no more crap about not being able to edit pieces. *cough* issu....)
8. was convinced that Serendipity is totally underrated. by Serendipity herself :)
9. struggled a lot with religious faith and have realized that it's not for me. it's upsetting, but also weirdly empowering, too...
10. ate a lot of dark chocolate digestive biscuits to complement the not-so-great hall meals here...(they call it trough)

i have yet to find my routine here, but i'm getting there. firstly, got to tackle a mountain of errands this weekend. i put off EVERYTHING for essays, seriously, but the weird thing is i conversely put off essays for the most trivial of things like facebook stalking, PET bottle recyling, digestive biscuits, etc. sigh well it feels good to be concerned about the small things for a change...:) as opposed to huge, aching questions about my place here.

couldn't have done it without the love and encouraging words of a lot of eople however. it's pleasantly surprising how one can find inspiration in the most unlikely places. but yeah, sometimes i lie in bed and i just feel all this love from distant places awash over me and i think, "this has gotta make all of this worth it" and "what the heck did i do to deserve such a family and such friends?" sigh. i have so much learning and living to do.