ALL WE HEAR IS RADIO GAGA

am, in fact, still alive. moved in, installed, etc. have been keeping you all updated since even before the plane landed, only you haven't been able to hear me until now. read on:

( Friday morning, 7 am Greenwich Summer Time )

( Friday morning, 9:15 GST )

( Friday night/Saturday morning, 12:30 GST )

( Saturday evening, 6:30 GST )

( Saturday night, 10:00 GST )

( Sunday afternoon, 1:00 GST )

( Sunday, 5:45 pm GST )

( Sunday, 11:00 pm GST )

monday, 10:30 am GST

yeah, so. here i am. further update on the visa situation: every american student i spoke to last night had the same experience at the airport. not sure how to look at it where it's not at least a little bit the college or university's fault for not telling people they might need a visa. further update on the computer situation: i activated the school e-mail account, but then when i tried to log in to a networked computer it still didn't like it. may not have left enough time for the password to take effect. am at the moment on a public e-mail terminal at the Computer Services Help Center Centre. (double quotes are shift-2. and other strangenesses.) i'm going to ask this nice young man at the desk if i should be concerned that i still can't log in to the network, and then i'm going to go see if i can't find my department and ask them if there's something i should be doing with regard to, i don't know, classes or something.

will, hopefully, be back again soon.

PHE4R MY CONFIGURATION SKILZ

yeah, so, i got the internet hookup in my room sorted, as they say. w00t!

that's all for now. oh, except: british banks SUCK. do you know they wanted a two thousand pound minimum balance to give an international student a checking account? TWO THOUSAND POUNDS. that is not a misprint.

because every student i know has four grand free to leave sitting around doing nothing.

[ETA: slight glitch -- i can receive e-mail, but not send it, evidently. i get the following error message: "Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity. Account: '[earthlink user name]', Server: 'smtp.earthlink.net', Protocol: SMTP, Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Error Number: 0x800CCC0F". any thoughts?]