| 24/2/2006 I know, I haven't written the diary in a while: somehow Nathan and homework were enough to keep me busy during half term. At least I finally finished editing 'Fall of the Catlans' (Jaron)- WOOHOO! On Wednesday (22nd) I visited Lancaster University. As well as Lancaster. I thought it was a city but it's actually just a town, with only one train station. The Uni is relatively new. It was built in the 60s, which is why most of the buildings are blocks, interconnected by paths and walkways that ran underneath. The bus stops were in the underpass, just like a typical drive-through tunnel. Going around the campus was strange because unlike typical open-air campuses where you walked along outside paths and could tell where you were, in Lancaster you walked up and down ramps underneath the buildings and found yourself in different plazas and courtyards, which at first glance looked similar. Thank goodness for our many tour guides. Since it's a trend for Unis to be building more these days, there were new and cool buildings too. The Church had 3 cylinders with the crosses converging at the top-close to making the Lancaster Uni symbol. The Halls of Residence had more interesting architecture. They were building another one when I went. Like many Unis, this one was over-publicised in the Prospectuses, but this Uni moreso than others simply because most of the architecture was boring. The town itself looked boring-generally better living standard than in London-but hearing Lancaster to be an old town in the countryside...well, I thought it would have more charm, like in Winchester. But no, the buildings looked flat and clay. Looking back, I had more of an attraction to Swansea. When I went to the interview, the shuttlebus showed a slightly more decrepid part of the city (partly demolished) but I didn't care, probably because I had seen the charming areas. But I'm still not sending off my decisions until after seeing Aberystwyth-I want to put my offers into focus. Yesterday (23rd), there were 2 power cuts at school (Wallington High School for Girls). I was in the library for both of them and it was quite funny because the people at the computers always gave off a yell of surprise and the librarian just sat there in surprise. "Well, that's it" she shrugged and got on with sorting books or whatever she could without technology. People cheered when the lights came back on. The second power cut lasted 'til part way through lunchtime. The canteen had its own emergency power source so they could carry on cooking. To my surprise it had a lack of windows so the food was being served and taken in shadows. We could still see the food, just not too well. The tills didn't work so they had to write down our orders and charge them later (they wrote down our card numbers with them). In any case, the canteen gets the prize for being the darkest place in the entire school. |