September 1st

Hey-
Well my head is spinning..that is basically the only way to explain everything that is going on and everything that is happening right now. This past weekend we had the English Lacrosse induction and we learned anything and everything in such a short amount of time so my brain is about to explode. We learned about child protection, the English education system, rules of the game here, umpiring, coaching/drills, what we are here to do, what we could be asked to do, how to act with the boarding students and also how to act with the staff, and anything else they could throw at us. We all took so many notes it is ridiculous but I left with a bunch of new friends and people to travel with and tons of lax drills/lessons and things to do with the girls. I met people who are in Scotland, right outside London, and in various towns around the UK. We already made a facebook group and decided that we need to travel everywhere possible and visit wherever we possibly can while we are here so that we can see every town in England and get to know everyone's area. Also, people have very different living arrangements. Some people are living with families, others in houses with other people, and many have their own flats on campus and some do not even live on campus. I am the first American at this school so I am an experiment; another girl is starting a completely new program where there was no lacrosse and has to do boys and girls programs; one girl is actually a University coach at Duram and obviously making bank there haha about £400 more than the rest of us. That is going to take alot more time though because she has to do it all, including contact us for recruiting information and such. It was very cool to talk to people about where they are, what they are doing, where they went to college and high school and just to see the range of people doing what I am doing. Overall, no one wanted to leave because we had a lot of fun together during the day and at night, we went out to the campus pub where the induction course was which was very convenient. The next day the people in charge said we are a much more "lively" group than last years and said they weren't sure what other word to use for us haha. We want to plan trips to London and other countries around Europe. There are opportunities for us to all form a lacrosse team and travel to tournaments around Europe including Madrid, Berlin, Prague, Latvia and so many other countries so we are going to match up dates of our breaks and see what we can come up with. Now I am back at school trying to get internet in my flat which is quite the complicated task and also tried to get a calling card but apparently the machine at the post office is broken until next week which doesn't make sense to me-crazy Monmouth. Wednesday I will go into Cribbs which I don't know where that is but Ceri is taking me to look at phones and get a UK plan (not international because it's too expensive and I'll use calling cards and Skype which is webcamming) and also there is a broadband wireless stick I can get for my laptop. If I can't get the I.T. guys to set up my wireless before going into town after practice on Wednesday then I will do the plan for the broadband stick because the head of boarding said it is no more than £10/month so we shall see. I am dying for internet in my flat so that I can start webcamming with people and chat online! Mom-got the featherbed today so I made my bed with that and the flannel sheets and it's brilliant:-) I have had so much tea since I've been here and somehow acquired quite the taste for coffee-my mother's daughter:-) Anyway, this is becoming pretty long and I'm sure I could keep going and going but will just update you in a few days hopefully when things have hopefully fallen into place. Tomorrow begins my first day of PE classes then practice after school then boarding house duties and I think I have Multisport duty tomorrow night which I just take them to the gym and play games with them which clearly isn't a problem for me:-)

Miss everyone and talk soon!
Danielle