Course Approval
Feb 20th, 2006 (another backdated entry)They write the date differently down here. So instead of writing it 02/20/06 (or 2006), it's 20-02-06.
Course approval. Wrote a big rant about it in live journal. Basically it was hell.
I woke up at a marvelous 5am. I had gone to sleep around midnight, but I'm still jetlagged so my body was all like: 'Hmm. 5am is a good time to wake up. What, four-five hours of sleep? Pft, we can handle it!'
A few hours later, around 7am, I heard a tap at our front door. A girl from flat G came over (name rhymes with Cinnamon) asking for her breakfast. Apparently, all of the other flats were well aware of the fact that they were supposed to get breakfast at our Flat. I had seen the delivery truck earlier, but just had assumed that the delivery had gone to the RAs, whose flats face the same car parking lot. A brief walk outside, and we discovered that the bread and milk were actually in the little guard house that's connected to our flat.
But the door was locked, and my key didn't work. A brief walk down to Cumberland Hall (by myself -- the girl went off to get ready for the day), and I had to track down someone who had the key to that door. Hopefully they'll leave it ajar, since none of us have a key that'll open that door.
Then... Course Approval!
Course approval is a new level of hell. The purpose of course approval as I understand it is to let you meet the professors, and actually talk to the departments you plan to take classes from in the year so that you know if you want to take the class or if you can take that class.
I had to go the International Students Welcome Desk to find out where the international students were supposed to go in order to get their official course listings and the necessary forms to . Then I had to stand in line forever, just to learn I needed to stand in a different line to sort out my medical insurance before I could even get the list of courses that I'm signed up for. They copied my passport, made me sign up for medical insurance, and then (after an hour and a half) I got my classes.
Fantastic. Apparently I was signed up for 2:4 classes that I shouldn't have been signed up for -- an advanced surveying course and an advanced geology course. I've taken...one geoarchaeology class, and, thus, I'm not capable of taking those classes. Then I had to figure out what building and what room those courses were in. First to get my anthro and Moari classes approved, which took no time at all, then off to go get my surveying and geology courses fixed.
If I thought the international students line took a while, then the surveying line lasted an eternity. What made it more awkward was that everyone around me was about 6'3" hulks of manflesh. The beachbums that actually work out. (And, again, many of them were barefoot). It was a little unnerving, being the only girl standing in that kind of line, and being unable to converse to them about anything since, well, I didn't know much about surveying except for transects. The prof who signed me off for surveying was nice, though, and definitely wanted to talk to me to make up for the amount of time I spent in line. He even helped me figure out that I could take geography classes, and which ones would work into my schedule.
Hustled off to the geography line, and, again, waited in line forever. It was well past 1pm, and I hadn't had lunch. But I did get to stand in line next to a grad student from China who was very nice. I think she was from near Beijing, but not sure. She was really nice, an environmental studies student, and we talked about being international students. The Kiwi fellows standing in front of us tried to ignore us -- in the line next to me was a bloke from Oberlin, though, and we exchanged some small talk.
I ended up signing up for the geography 101 class. This should be able to count towards my geoarchaeology concentration, and it takes care of my science credit.
I needed to sign up for a fourth class, though, since now I was down to three. So I hustled back to sign up for some Japanese courses...only to discover that most of them weren't offered this semester, or conflicted with my other classes. So I ended up signing up for the Chinese Cinema class -- I get the impression, from the sheer joy that there was a student signing up for one of his classes, that the Chinese department is not as popular as the Japanese department. Standing in line, though, I noticed that Spanish was also not popular...French was the most popular foreign language people were signing up for. German/European studies was also not popular at all.
Then I had to go figure out where I needed to go in order for someone to enter my courses into a computer (which I could have done myself) and then I had to go stand in line for my id. Which looks like craaap. Not the id, my picture. The ID itself is like 100 times better than the BMC ID. It has your email address on it, your user id, and a nice background picture. It also apparently doubles as your print card, meaning you can put money on it to pay for print jobs.
I took the library tour, and I think I may be in love with the Central Library. I'll need to post pictures of its beauty.
I’m trying hard to be a bit more of a social butterfly than I am, typically. It’s really difficult though.
After getting a really big sub (lamb with tomato basil and garlic mayo and cheese -- yum!) at some diner that‘s across the street from the information center, went over with Ruth to visit some German fellows. Yahn has really curly hair, and wears glasses, whereas F is tall and brunette. They're both very nice, with Yahn definitely being more extroverted and comfortable with the English language, and the most eager to pick my brains.
We played pool, and I completely embarrassed myself. I’m really, really bad at pool, and they were all really good. But I haven't had much of an opportunity to go to bars or play pool. Well, I suppose I've had the opportunity, but it definitely wasn't the focus of my home university. This whole 'party' atmosphere is something as alien to me as the local accent.
Speaking of accents: Sarcasm does not translate well. They don't teach it in English class. It's also the base of my generation's sense of humor, and thus, since I try to be humorous, it definitely is making for a gap in the translation for the Germans. It’s enough that I’m trying to adjust to the Kiwi culture, but I’m also trying to adjust to the studying abroad German culture.
Speaking of Kiwi culture, today I observed what is one of the Orientation week traditions. Couch burning.
This basically entails a bunch of flat people getting together. With the liberal application of alcohol (typically beer) to their insides, they heft a piece of furniture (namely a couch) out to the street and set it on fire. Then, they and all of their neighbors gather outside. Some of the men folk will frolick around the piece of flaming furniture (we saw one guy trying to leap near one side of it and he fell -- wasn’t hurt, though). They then time to see how long it takes for the fire truck to arrive.
3 minutes.
The fire truck arrives, and the firemen climb out. They look grumpy, with the sort of look on their faces that seemed to express that they knew this was just a stupid prank, that it would continue to happy frequently for the rest of the week, that they were sick and tired, and all they wanted to do was put out the damn fire and be off with their business.
While they are grumpily dousing the fire, the college students are gathered around cheering them on. This surprised me. One would think that there would be at least an ‘aw’ or two of disappointment that the flame was going out. However, the opposite was true. It seemed almost as if the fire were a lure to pull out the poor firemen. Or maybe the students just wanted to demonstrate that, although they were partaking in deviant behavior, they still had respect for the establishment.
I didn’t get a chance to really ask them about it. The fire was put out, and the fire truck was backed away while the crowd filtered away at a leisurely pace. The firemen did not even talk to the college students, just glared at them sourly as they got in and out of the vehicle and put out the flame. There were no fines, no punishment, just putting out the fire.
Odd.
posted by Hoot @ 10:40 AM
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