You know you're in the UK when...

Cigarette packs look like this:

The spelling is funny and they use military time:

Pigs can't fly, but cows can:

You can spend an hour in an amazing museum for free while killing time between classes:

In Ghana, caskets are customized. This man wanted a Mercedes Benz, the ultimate sign of wealth. Other people get giant whales and things like that. I think I'm going to be buried in an ice cream cone.

A whole room full of awesome animals! I apparently weigh as much as a giant anteater, but I sadly cannot pedal the demo bike as fast as a cheetah can run.

In other news:

My education class seems like it'll be pretty interesting; it's about different learning styles, educational theories, and community learning, and it involves PBL! Peanut butter and lettuce? Potato, bacon and lime? Nope, problem-based learning, to apply what we've been reading about to real-world scenarios. Most of the students in there are first-years, so it'll be... interesting to work with them. There are 260 in that class, about 2/3 the size of my entire Pomona graduation class!

I also had Global Englishes, which seems like it'll be awesome. We'll be looking at different dialects of English around the world, how and why the language has spread and become the global standard, how it has affected people and economies, and different attitudes towards this phenomena. We watched this TED talk in class, which gives one perspective on it. Dad, I think you especially will appreciate it:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jay_walker_on_the_world_s_english_mania.html


It seems very weird to me that in such an international city, in a third-year class, people were still snickering at a native Chinese girl's attempts to speak English. Not even attempts, really, as she was reasonably fluent. She just had a very, very strong accent. The racial tensions over here are unsettling...

I miss everyone back home, days without wind, and having more than one shelf in the fridge. And it's weird getting used to their education system, where the entire grade is based on one assessment in December! I feel a lot of pressure to start reading now, yet don't know if it's really necessary... I guess I'm still adjusting. Now that school's started, I don't feel like I'm on vacation anymore. But alas, it's just Week 1 of class.