Calling in from Reading

[Trring triing]
Hello, this is Jaa. I'm away right now, please leave a message at the beep.
[Beep!]

Hey ya! I'm calling in from Reading (UK) from the (dis)comforts of my room in a university accomodation hall. I flew in to Gatwick via Doha from the Maldives on Qatar Airways. The trip was bothersome and the planes were really a disappointment, really. The wait at Doha was terrible more so contributed by the horrible airport itself. The fellow at the boarding gate took a clean 5 minutes looking at my passport. At first I thought he had something in his eye and was using my passport as mirror - he surely had it up close to his eyes! Then he started eyeing me up and let me go after ages of waiting and getting wierd looks from fellow passengers. Just as I thought the hassle was over, the fellow came over as I was sitting the boarding lounge and took away my passport for another 15 minutes, all without a mention of what was up. Later he came back with it and was courteous enough to let me know there was something "abnormal" about my passport. Oh well, the Maldivian government issued the passport so I should let them know there is something abnormal with their passports...

On arrival to Gatwick, Qatar Airways had managed to loose my luggage somewhere - hopefully not into a deep ocean. I continued my journey to Reading -minus my luggage- on a train on which I kept falling in and out of some wierd reality. Maybe the lack of sleep the previous night contributed to this yet again "abnormal" event. I took a cab from Reading Railway Station to my accomodation hall. Ofcourse, this was no easy feat when I kept feeling wierd realities mixup with each other but I finally stumbled into some university representatives that pointed in me the correct direction and rid me of using my intellectual faculties at all.

The accomodation hall is quite wicked and I love it. The building is quite new, modern looking and beautifuly decoured. (Coolest of all, all access to building areas including my room are controlled by RFID cards). There are 7 other tenants in the flat block I am in. All of them British and none of them study any science. Oh yes, there are girls too and some(one?) quite yummmyyyy delicious too.... sigh.

It is the fresher's week now and lots of stuff happening. The enrolment stuff and faculty and course introductions going on as well as lots of fun social activities. While I am trying not to be anti-social, I don't think I'm making much progress in being sociable. My eyes are bloodshot from continuous wear of contact lens - part induced by the lack of spectacles and lens cleaning solution with me.

I'd post some pictures but I don't have the camera cable either. Oh well I guess I shall continue wearing the same clothes for a little more while too! All these thanks to Qatar Airways. These airline buggers have been crawling at the speed of snails. They are being really really careless and have not located my luggage still.

On a slightly more optimistic cheerful note, I am liking it here. I really am. I guess I'll have to wait for uni studies to start to make a solid comment though.

Toodles.