Firstly, I do not think that many of you live off campus, but I do. Long before I came to Brighton I knew I'd search for a flat with my g/f (who's also enroled at University of Sussex).

So we came to Brighton on 23rd September. For two days we've been roaming all the letting agencies and browsing 'gumtree'. One of the only flats we checked out was in East Moulsecoomb, 5 minutes away from Sussex and over 20 minutes away from the city. The flat was not a superb one but it had a bedroom, a lounge, a kitchen, a bathroom, a separate toilet, a TV license, a washing machine, a fridge, a microwave and was fully furnitured. Neither agencies nor 'gumtree' couldn't offer us anything, so we decided to take it.

We crashed a place of my g/f's friend's friend before we could move into our place. Each day we would spend a £3,60 on a CitySaver ticket to wander from friend's to Uni and from Uni to town.

The day we finally moved into our place, we decided to go buy a yearly student saver ticket. (It took me some time before I made my decision. £300 for a ticket! But that's less than a pound a day. But that's a calendar year! What if I'll go back home for summer? Oh, this is hard.) So we bought two £3,60 tickets in the morning and went from to Uni. I asked at the Union shop whether they sell those tickets and the cashier said no and started explaining me where to get them. I suppose she told me that I could get it at the Uni post office, but I didn't catch that. I only heard that we could get them in Old Steine, there's this shop called 1 Stop Travel where they sell those yearly tickets. So after Uni we went to town, to the 99p and Poundland, then to Old Steine. It was about 6pm, so the shop was closing, but they let us in. We barged in with fifty seven bags of products, all tired after an exhausting day...

So I walk up to the woman at the till and tell her what I want and she says: 'Ok, I'll need two photos of you'.

...

My g/f got the ticket that day, cuz she had some spare photos of her in her bag. I didn't. I only got my ticket the next day at the Uni post office. Fail.

While the induction week is coming to an end, I think I need to sum up my first impressions about the Uni and the town. One of the first impressions was... well, I'm a Lithuanian and, well, it's was wonderful to know there's another Lithuanian in the school of Media.

Anyway, the following is a list of details that seem to build up into a full image of Sussex for me at the moment:

* Starlings

* Grass

* Poster sales

* Library computers - slow low low low low low low low

* Hyperactive people from Students Union

* Friendly tutors

* A lotta British students, which is good!

* A lotta reading lists, which is confusing

* One day it's cloudy, one day it's sunny

* Everybody lives on campus

* No food other than burgers and sandwiches

* A burger costs an hour in a queue plus £3,50

Brighton list:

* Logically, it's the same with clouds and sun

* Amazing seafront

* Starlings which won't let you eat burgers on the amazing seafront

* Endless pub crawls both by Brighton and by Sussex students

* Royal Pavilion - Brighton's very own Taj Mahal

* Little cosy shops

* Burger King's discount leaflets

* Bus stops that say '25 Universities - due'

* Primark bags

* 99p and Poundland stores (everything for a pound or less!)

* Sitting on the second floor of a doubledecker and not believing that the bus could actually fit in such a narrow street/turn

These lists could go on forever. Can you suggest anything you've experienced? Feel free to add it to the list.

So, back to my first impressions... WOOOOW! It's so wonderful that there's so much of them! Each of these little things in the lists has been new to me and I can either like them or not but I'm already in love with my first year at this University!

There's certainly some charm in the first visits to the University. But it all turns around when you have to get somewhere in particular.

The Legend of the Unknown Building

During the introductory lecture at the Chichester Lecture Theatre (I guess that's what it's called) which was basically about who's who in our wonderful School of Film, Media and Music, I saw a girl in front of me with a course reader. I asked her where did she get it and she then circled the 17th building on the map that I gave her. Later I got a letter in my Uni email and it read something like 'Get your course readers at the Silverstone Building, floor 3, between 9 and 10 am'. But it was too late that day and they didn't sell the readers the next day. However, I still had to go to the Silverstone Building, since some meeting took place there. So I came to the campus that day, knowing only the title of the building I should go to, but not where it is.

Of course, I connected the dots. The 17th building must be it! But wait, let's check the map. Where is that building... Ok, here's the map. Ok, here's the 17th. But wait... it's not Silverstone. It's EDB. Double you tee eff! Checked the number and the title like fifty seven times, but they didn't fit. I even asked a few people about it and they told me Silverstone didn't exist!

Gosh, was I panicking for a moment, but luckily I remembered one of our faculty staff saying something like 'You can find it in the EDB building...' - 'No, it's Silverstone now', someone corrected him. So, the 17th building MUST be it!

After this, I still needed five more minutes to recover and finally understand what's happened. Even now, I sometimes keep on checking the map, hoping that the number and the title finally fit.

The Quest for Uni Sweaters

If you checked the Students' Union website, you'd see that they have green, yellow and even pink Uni sweaters. But if you go to the shop on campus you'll only find the dull black and grey ones. Though the volunteers of the induction week have been wearing a much bigger variety of colours.

You can judge them now in your mind. Or no, don't be so fast to judge. It may be a secret quest set up by the USSU to find the rare sweaters!

The Legend of the Unknown Society

Back in the first day when I came to Brighton (23rd Sept, I suppose), I was told that there's a Thinkery Society in Sussex. It was said that the members of the society meet up in a bar somewhere and start philosophying. Wow! The Skull and Bones society at the Yale University in America do practically the same, only they drink prestigious wine in huge and luxurious library halls of ex-Presidents.

So, when the Freshers Fair time came, I went out wandering past all the desks with little cakes and candies - 'Please join our society, we're fun!' - and I looked for the Thinkery Society. I'll tell you what I found on my way - 20 socialist/anarchist societies, the same amount of fundraising societies, 10 travelling and hiking societies, 5 safe sex societies (with condoms instead of cakes on their desks) and millions of shouting sportsmen. I particularly enjoyed seeing the guy from the Philosophy Society with an evil grin. Could that be him, the founder of the Thinkery?

The members of the Thinkery are probably being prosecuted and chased by angry mobs, that's why they changed their name to the harmless Philosophy Society. But you can see from the evil grin of the guy at the desk, that the game's not over.

To sum up I'd like to point out that there's so much more to the University of Sussex than there is on the surface. So dive in and search for the pearls!

Dear diary,

I am in a hurry because there's just two days left before the blog competition finishes. It means that hardly anyone will ever read you if I wait any longer. You know what that means, don't you? If I hesitated a little more, you wouldn't exist. No one would ever find out about my first impressions when I came to Brighton or Sussex Uni. No one - and I mean no one - would ever get to read about the Freshers Fair, the IT induction or the last-day-poster-sales. No one would ever - and I really mean that - become aware of what an undergraduate feels when he steps into the Bramber House and walks up to a girl at the desk, wearing midnight green t-shirt with that sign of the University of Sussex, and the girl asks the undergraduate his last name...

That's my last name she's asking for. I'm that undergraduate, who's walked through the misty and empty squares and roads of the University at 9am on Tuesday, Sept 29, who's stepped into the Bramber House, anxious to see millions of newcomers like myself but who instead has just found three confused freshers and a few chatting volunteers.

'Ivanov', I say to the girl.

She briefly brushes her fingers against some folders with the student cards and doesn't find mine in there. But it's ok, in a minute or so, another girl comes and takes me to a machine behind the desk and asks me my name again.

'Ivanov', I repeat.

So, she types in: 'Ave...'.

Noticing that, I say to her: 'No no, it's I-V-A...'.

She nods her head understandingly, apologies and corrects her first try into: 'R-V-E...'.

'No, the first letter is I, not R'.

...in the end I get to type it myself.

I...V...A...N...O...V

M...A...K...S...I...M

Nice to meet you, call me Max :)

The University is running a photo competition around 'Freshers Week' and induction. Students and staff can enter, and there are prizes. More details are on the main university site.

Meanwhile, I caught this pair of large whites in flagrante yesterday. I don't think it quite meets the competition theme though ;)