Hello! I've been in London for about a week now, I've just been busy getting adjusted and everything.
Queen Mary is actually in the East End of London ... meaning its the eastern part of London. I guess it is notoriously known for signs of poverty and crime, but has gotten much better in the past years. It is home to a lot of the new immigrants who came to London ... so it has a large jewish and bangladeshi and Indian community. (as you walk around there are a million signs that say "HALAL food") Our closest tube station is Mile End and we're also walking distance to Whitechapel which has a lot of cheap street vendors (I just bought 14 bananas with my friend for one pound ! ).
I finally got my student oyster card... which gives me a 30% discount on oyster fares (which are already discounted) so I'll be able to actually do all the touristy stuff without having to spend SO MUCH MONEY on the tube (its like 4 pounds for a single fare!).
Anyways, school is a little different ... a lot of the classes are structured so only the final determines you entire grade which kind of scares me - i know i'm gonna fall behind. At least I only have class Monday - Wed. =) Its weird too because lectures for one class may be split up into separate lectures throughout the same day ... so for bio i have class monday 10-11, and then 12-1.
So far, we've just done a lot of shopping... went to ikea and random supermarkets to get everything we needed. Luckily my room and everything is really nice and I even have my own bathroom. I share the kitchen with 8 other students in my flat. We also took a little boat cruise that was sponsored by the uni for the new associate students... which actually wasn't as fun as it sounds - but we did get to see the green laser light at Greenwich that denotes the prime meridian.

More to come later =)