Kiwi'd

Differences Between US and NZ Universities, Take I

Cumberland Hall (February 18th)
My first day hadn't yet come to a close, but I feel that I need to make a separate post to explain the differences between the organization of living quarters at New Zealand as opposed to my home university.
At Bryn Mawr college, almost everyone lives in the dorms. The way it works is that freshman year, you are assigned a dorm with the rest of the freshmen class. Most freshmen live in multiple occupancy rooms, but a good portion of them also have singles. The living space is generally small, particularly in comparison to the upperclasswomen rooms. You are put into what we call a 'Customs Group', and under-go orientation, called 'Customs Week', which is actually not a week but just a few days, but takes place before everyone else arrives on campus.
At the end of the year, you are given a lottery number. Your lottery number corresponds to the order in which you get to pick your room within your class. When the dorm lottery comes around, rising seniors get to select their rooms first, followed by rising juniors, then rising sophomores. There are a few special houses (such as the Vegan House) that you can apply to get into, and some people decide to rent an apartment somewhere, but for the most part, you live in a dorm. After freshman year, you will also generally live in a single.
In New Zealand, things are different. Freshmen are still assigned housing, yes. But instead of dorms, the dormitories are called Halls or even Colleges. After freshman year, students either apply (yes, you have to apply to get into a specific dormitory) to live in a Hall/College, or they 'flat'. My impression is that the vast, vast majority of Kiwis at the University of Otago decide to flat. Flatting can be done through the school, but for the most part, you rent a flat from someone and share it with your mates.
Most international students also flat. Like me.
As such, many things are different. If there is a dining hall, I don't know where it is on campus. Food is generally gotten from the grocery store or from a fast food place. We have a kitchen, which comes complete with all sorts of delicious cooking supplies. Because I'm flatting through the college, we are also supplied a weekly or bi-weekly allotment of bread, milk, butter, cereal, and so forth.
Like a freshman, I didn't get to select my flatmates. They were assigned. Last year, apparently, the majority of people flatting in Cumberland Court were Kiwis, but this year, they're mostly international students. Cumberland Court is associated with Cumberland Hall, a dorm, and they take care of us pretty well and assigned us to our flats. Like in the dorms at home, I have a closet, a dresser drawer, and a desk. The linens were also supplied. I have no internet in my room.
I'm in a small flat. It actually wasn't even a flat until this year, and it still has a sign dennoting it as 'Manager Services' to this day. There are two people other than myself living here, each with our own bedrooms. My flatmates are a Kiwi, who was born in Tawain, and German. They're both nice. We have a common room where we can watch about 9 different channels of TV on, and the Kiwi brought a DVD player which we can us.

Now to return to my first day adventures.

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I took about an hour nap, but beyond that, I have only unpacked and gone to the grocery store. The grocery store was entirely too draining, and I think it is really what killed my energy, and really smacked me with culture shock. First of all, I couldn’t figure out how to get into the bloody store. (It turned out my instinct was right, but the entrance seriously looked like the exit) Then I was searching for things that I knew I could eat. It was difficult enough walking to the place and having to deal, in my sleep-deprived world, with all of the visual stimuli that was not ‘quite right’. But then I had to deal with all of the things that should have been familiar and just…simply weren’t.
This isn’t to say that I’m homesick. I think that will come later. Just right now my brain is too tired to adjust. It’s like I’m looking through a pair of glasses that isn’t my prescription. It makes me feel wobbly…although that could be the sleep deprivation, and all the walking and running around. It also doesn’t help that I have to listen real hard to understand what people are saying. It’s not that I can’t understand. The New Zealand accent is, surprisingly, very American. But, like looking at all the food labels and recognizing -what- something is without it being what I’m used to, it’s just a bit off.
I went to bed early (8pm), after taking a shower. I was exhausted.

posted by Hoot @ 9:57 PM