Suddenly, before I knew it, it was too late to go back. Michael dropped me off at the front of the campus and I walked to my first class, Introduction to English Literature.
I entered the room, a big hall in a semi-circle, already about half full with students, with ten minutes to go before the class was scheduled to start. It looked surprisingly modern, I was half expecting the classroom insides to look like something out of Harry Potter given the exterior of the campus, but it was well lit, with light wooden tables and modern chairs. A projector in the ceiling shone on a screen that dominated the far wall of the room.
Looking around, I spotted a couple of empty seats about halfway up, and made my way over. They were near the aisle, too, so I wouldn’t have to awkwardly crawl over people to get to the seat.
I sat down shyly next to a girl with short black hair and a nice smile, then reached into my bag and took out my laptop.
“Hi, I’m Annie,” the girl next to me said with a smile and an adorable English accent that wasn’t quite the same as John Alcott’s, but also not the same as what I’d hear in the East London markets. There were so many nuances and different accents in this country, it was crazy.
“Julianne. Nice to meet you.”
“Oooh, you’re American! Where from?”
“New York,” I replied. “How about you?”
“I grew up in Manchester,” she replied. “Moved down here for University though.”
“How long have you lived here for?”
“Just a couple weeks. My mum didn’t want me to come at all, she wanted me to stay closer to home. My father insisted though. He thought I needed to get out and see the world.”
“It’s different for sure. I lived in New York my whole life until a couple of weeks ago. I never thought I’d leave, really. Then my mom got engaged to a guy here, and here I am.”
“Well, welcome to England! I hope you like it. You get used to the rain, I promise.”
“As long as you don’t get storms the media starts calling “snowcopalypse” every winter, I think I can handle a bit of rain.”
Annie laughed. Just then, a tall, balding man walked to the front of the room and cleared his throat while dimming the lights with a remote control in his hand. The projector came to life, shining a powerpoint presentation titled “English Literature” with the subtitle “An attempt to teach you 1000 years of history in five months”
I could hear Annie giggling at the title, and I smiled to myself as well. A similar thought had occurred to me when I saw the course name, but seeing as it was a mandatory course for my degree, I signed up for it nonetheless. Besides, going back to basics couldn’t hurt.
For the next hour and a half I took diligent notes as the professor – Dr. Andrew Gillespie – outlined the course and jumped straight in with a lecture about one of the earliest and most influential works in English literature, the Canterbury Tales.
Right at 10am the professor wrapped up and let us out to go to our next classes.
“I have Journalism 101 now,” I told Annie as I got up to leave. “How about you?”
“Some science elective, I’m awful at science so I figured I’d get it out of the way quickly. Genetics or something. My older brother told me it was easy. But I’ll see you for our class on Wednesday for sure, right?”
“Yeah, you will,” I replied, and she waved goodbye to me as we parted ways. I smiled to myself. I thought I made myself a friend!
Before I knew it, I’d finished three classes, and my first day of University. Michael came by to pick me up when I texted him, and on the way back I sat excitedly in my seat.
“Good day?” he asked. I was surprised, Michael never really made much conversation in the car.
“It was, actually. I didn’t know what to expect.”
“I’m glad. It’s a great school.”
“Yeah, I was just worried I’d be way too dumb for everyone there. I mean, I might still be, but at least they seem like normal people for the most part, you know?”
“I do. You’ll be fine, Julianne. Don’t worry.”
With those words of support I made my way back into the house when we got back, and immediately started on my reading assignment for the English Literature class, where we actually had homework on the first day.
Maybe University wasn’t going to be as bad as I’d feared after all.
Chapter Five
The next day my first and only class of the day was Introduction to Human Resources. As part of the degree we had to have a first year business class and a first year science class completed, to make sure we were well rounded students. Human Resources sounded easy enough, so that one was the one I chose.