23

My first week here in Brighton has been amazing!  I have done so much.  It feels like I have been here much longer than just a week.

School started on Monday.  There was an induction session where all us exchange students found out our class schedules and fixed any clashes in our timetables.  This semester I will be taking 6 courses – the equivalent of 5 classes back of home.  The courses I am doing are:

       1.   Understanding Contemporary Britain (all exchange students have to take this one)

       2.   Political Economy in Europe

       3.   Emerging Financial Markets

       4.   Public Relations: Practices & Principles

       5.    Consumer Psychology

       6.   International Human Resource Management

I’m looking forward to the classes I have.  Here in Britain the style of teaching is slightly different so I’m not worried about studying so many topics.  The classes are self-directed or active learning based which means there are no graded assignments throughout the semester.  How much you learn is based on how much you read or study on your own time.  Then 100% of your grade for the course is derived from either a 2-hour written exam or a final paper/essay.

I think I’m going to like this style of learning.  Another perk is that I have Mondays and Fridays off so every week I have a four-day weekend.  And in total between Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I only have 11 hours of class.

Enough about school for now.  Even though school is the reason for being here in Brighton it really does seem like a side-note to everything else that is going on.

There has been something going on every day this week - parties, gatherings, dinners out, adventures walking around the town center, shopping trips, sports, etc.

The highlight of my week was Wednesday.  It was my 23^rd birthday!  If this week has been any indication 23 just might be my best year yet.

All day at school all my friends and the new exchange students I met wished me happy birthday.  My friend, David from Paris, took it upon himself to tell me almost every hour, “Johanna it’s your birthday! Happy Birthday!”  It made me smile each and every time.

In the evening I was invited to a party in another flat here in Paddock Field before going out in town.  At one point the entire group about 50 people, a mix of exchange students and Brits, spontaneously broke out in a round of “Happy Birthday!”  It was slightly embarrassing but mostly it was really nice.  Then later on the bus into town they all sang to me again.  I can honestly say I’d never had an entire bus sing “Happy Birthday” to me before.  I liked it.

It really was an awesome birthday.  But it didn’t end on Wednesday.  On Friday my friends surprised me with a birthday cake.  It was really sweet of them and I had no clue what they were up to.  We were all having dinner together in the other flat and once I had finished I meant to go back to my place because I was pretty tired but they wouldn’t let me.  They kept telling me I had to stay and I couldn’t figure out why.

At one point, thinking out loud I said I was craving a piece of chocolate so Justine was like I have some and literally dragged me to her room.  She is amazingly strong for someone so little.  When we got back to the kitchen the others had the cake ready and a champagne bottle full of confetti that unfortunately didn’t pop like it should have.

It was a great surprise!

I had been planning to continue writing more about things like playing volleyball today and doing a major clean of the kitchen in preparation for the Canadian brunch I’m cooking for roughly 15 people tomorrow… Oh and the Contiki trip I book for St. Paddy’s Day in Dublin and a day trip to Oxford, Windsor & Eton… but I’ve been convinced to join my friends at the pub for a drink.  So I guess that’s it for now. Enjoy some pictures of this week below. Cheers all!

Out for dinner in a typical British pub.  I'm not sure what was going on with Alessandra and Justine..