Day 14

Monday night my group began our Jurassic park project, basically the project was to watch the film paying particular attention to when the crazy scientist explained how the dinosaurs were created. We then had to write a couple of pages explaining which bits were plausible and which bits weren't. Suffice to say most of it is unrealistic but explaining exactly why it was wrong was quite interesting.

Day 15

Tuesdays are my horrendous day when I have 7-8 hours of lectures/practicals Starting at 8am and finishing at 7 (depending on how quickly we finish the practical). This week's practical involved transferring a gene for a fluorescent jellyfish protein into a colony of bacteria and hoping a week later when we see them that they fluoresce under UV light. Luckily I'm in a practical group with some older students who have done this 'simple stuff' loads of times before and they carry me through. I could probably do it without them but it would take twice as long and by 6pm I am seriously flagging!

Day 16

Not much interesting, I skyped the family. Wednesday evening I met up with my group and finished writing up the Jurassic park project.

Day 17

This was quite a good day. I started lectures at 8am but finished by 12 pm so had the rest of the day free. I did some reading and re-honed my pool skills, after playing on a snooker table playing on an American pool table (massive pockets) is quite easy. Unfortunately though it seems girls are far more interested in guys who play cool sports like basketball or American football. This seems obvious to me now, I mean how many Ashley Cole/Tiger Woods type scandals do you about Stephen Hendry and John Higgins? And coming to think about it you don't get many cheerleaders at pool games. Never mind. I ventured into the gym as well, it's free and the facilities are great. Only problem is the fixed weight machines are so brand new that they're quite confusing to use, when trying to figure out how to use the machines I end up looking more like mr bean than Sylvester Stallone. I finished off the day by going to a house party with a few class mates, they really do love their sports at their parties, everyone was either playing table football, darts or...beer pong. Arguably one of the less taxing sports but I think it would get more viewers than, and demand just as much skill as darts. So see the pictures for me playing beer pong - I was ok surprisingly, probably beginners luck. It is also a game that Sam Wright would absolutely kick ass at, the jammy throwing of balls that is, not the drinking part :P

Day 18

The day before the first American football game the marching band play in the high street. It was good fun to go to, the Americans have so much pride and community spirit. I have concluded that the biggest difference between Americans and Brits is that the yanks are so much more enthusiastic about everything, which is almost always a good thing. I stopped off at a take away Chinese on the way back and got a plum chicken and egg fried rice for $4.10, that is an outrageously good price and it tasted pretty good too, has to say it beats Wongs at Lancaster! After the parade I came back to campus and went to the planetarium and watched a laser show accompanied by Muse's album Black holes and revolutions. Very cool, next week is Pink Floyd's The Wall, I will definitely go to that, there's also ones for red hot chilli peppers and Tool. I now have something to do on Friday nights!Oh and on campus they paraded around Ralphie the buffalo (the team mascot) ironically Ralphie is a female as it would be too dangerous to use a male buffalo!

Day 19

A very hot day indeed, I played tennis 2-4pm which was a mistake really, it was sooooooo hot and the combination of the altitude, my terrible fitness and the heat made me very dehydrated and tired. On the upside I got to see some Chinese people playing tennis on the adjacent court. They were so unspeakably terrible that they were grunting to hit balls but missing them completely. It was like if Takeshi's castle had a tennis round. After dinner was an evening chilling with flat mates and playing Basketball. Oh it turns out short, white, british guys aren't that good at basketball, who'd have guessed?

Day 20

Skyped family again, more basketball in the evening, getting better I think. After basketball jammed with a friend in the evening and been introduced to some cool American music.

Day 21 - Apocalypse now? Forest fire north of boulder and smoke and ash is hanging over the city, it's quite a strange and ominous tone considering it is labour day (USA equivalent of a bank holiday)

Tune in next week to see if I survive the forest fire.