September 18, 2013, by Hector Stanley

Settling in.

So I’ve been on campus for three days now, and there’s been a whole lot to get used to.

I was met just before the immigration desks by the most upbeat person I think I’ve ever encountered (which I was pretty impressed by – he’d spent the last 8 hours waiting in the airport for students to appear) who informed me that the study visas had not quite appeared as we hoped, so we would have to go through immigration on a tourist visa – slightly nerve-wracking, but then at least we managed to avoid getting deported on the spot.

Campus, it turns out, is essentially a shrunken version of Nottingham’s, with the slight difference of being in the middle of an enormous palm tree plantation. But it is beautiful, and at 32 degrees all the time, it’s fairly hard to complain.

The next two days were various registrations and similarly exciting things. We had our medicals including blood tests and x-rays, then met our tutors (a Doctor Andy Chan – the head of civil engineering, who subtly hinted that he liked people taking him out for a pint or two) and then we had a chance to mingle with other people on our course.

Everyone seems to be really nice, and as we’re all in the same boat, it’s easy to find people to hang out with. And the geckos seem pretty friendly too.

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