I'm a big kid now!
I went to school today for a !*!BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!*!, which I've been getting email reminders about for a couple of weeks now.
Turns out I'm no longer attending college.
...No, I'm attending university!
'S'right, my college got officially declared a university today. (And boy am I ever glad that I didn't buy a school hoody or anything like that before now!)
It wasn't totally unexpected - we knew this announcement was coming. But frankly, I'm surprised it was this year. I didn't expect MRC's application to become "MRU" would be approved for a year or two yet.
The ceremony was about as boring as you'd expect, but there was a very good feeling in the air. After all, many of the people attending are now university students. (Although not, obviously, all the "special guests," who I think were mostly distinguished alumni and funders and shit - and among which there seemed to be an awful lot of ladies in their best Sunday churchgoin' hats.)
There were some long speeches I didn't pay all that much attention to, since I could barely hear it (even given the best sound set-up the school could have reasonably produced), but I didn't miss the Premier of Alberta officially announce it and sign the scroll. Big standing ovation for that!
On the back of my program, I noticed something mildly amusing: an article about our school logo. After all, it used to say, "College" on it! Time to update! Time for a new logo!
Unfortunately, our name is changing now, and the "creative team" designing our new logo won't have preliminary designs completed until a few weeks from now.
Mount Royal executive and management groups saw a challenge arise, however - how to fill the gap between a possible change in Mount Royal's name and the final approval of a new logo, which will likely happen in November.
The solution is brilliant in its simplicity, its low cost, and its emphasis on recycling. Across campus, all faculties and departments will use rubber stamps to manually stamp "University" over the existing word "College" on letterhead. Red markers will be used to cross out "College" on business cards and handwrite "University." Other low-tech tools include printer templates, stickers and decals to update banners, displays and publications. A temporary text-only wordmark has been prepared for marketing vehicles, advertising and other uses.
...That's right. Rather than simply leave most things as-is until November, and printing whatever doesn't need the full logo with the word "University" from now on, everybody is supposed to correct in red pen the current logo wherever it appears.
No joke. We all even got handed out red Sharpies at the ceremony.
I'm not exactly sure how environmentally friendly that is - how well will a million Sharpies decompose?
(And hey, theclamsman, any comments?)
I wonder what they're going to do about the fact that our old logo - a person with something that looks like a tulip for a body (and no, I don't know the story behind that one) - is carved in stone in every single wing of the building?
I see a lot of renovations in our future.
So this semester I'm taking:
And I have my locker, but it's way the hell and gone in the farthest possible corner of my school from my actual classes. Again, no joke - I'm in the very farthest wing from the science wing, and I have the VERY LAST LOCKER in the whole hallway, right at the very end.
On the other hand. It's in the Conservatory. Which means that the lockers - which are generally expected to go to the music students, who often put smaller musical instruments in their lockers - are roomy as hell. Plus, it's nice and quiet down there with the occasional strains of piano or violin music from nearby practice rooms.
I guess there could be worse places to have my locker...? I made the mistake of asking for the third floor without specifying the wing, is all - I guess the guy giving me the locker assumed I must be a music student, because what other nut would ask for the third floor on the first day of locker rentals?
(Answer: the trans student aware of the fact that the third-floor bathrooms are barely used. If you were wondering.)
But god, is that going to be a pain for those 8 am classes.
And I hope I don't end up with any Conservatory students annoyed at a Health Sciences major poaching one of their big-ass lockers.
Turns out I'm no longer attending college.
...No, I'm attending university!
'S'right, my college got officially declared a university today. (And boy am I ever glad that I didn't buy a school hoody or anything like that before now!)
It wasn't totally unexpected - we knew this announcement was coming. But frankly, I'm surprised it was this year. I didn't expect MRC's application to become "MRU" would be approved for a year or two yet.
The ceremony was about as boring as you'd expect, but there was a very good feeling in the air. After all, many of the people attending are now university students. (Although not, obviously, all the "special guests," who I think were mostly distinguished alumni and funders and shit - and among which there seemed to be an awful lot of ladies in their best Sunday churchgoin' hats.)
There were some long speeches I didn't pay all that much attention to, since I could barely hear it (even given the best sound set-up the school could have reasonably produced), but I didn't miss the Premier of Alberta officially announce it and sign the scroll. Big standing ovation for that!
On the back of my program, I noticed something mildly amusing: an article about our school logo. After all, it used to say, "College" on it! Time to update! Time for a new logo!
Unfortunately, our name is changing now, and the "creative team" designing our new logo won't have preliminary designs completed until a few weeks from now.
Mount Royal executive and management groups saw a challenge arise, however - how to fill the gap between a possible change in Mount Royal's name and the final approval of a new logo, which will likely happen in November.
The solution is brilliant in its simplicity, its low cost, and its emphasis on recycling. Across campus, all faculties and departments will use rubber stamps to manually stamp "University" over the existing word "College" on letterhead. Red markers will be used to cross out "College" on business cards and handwrite "University." Other low-tech tools include printer templates, stickers and decals to update banners, displays and publications. A temporary text-only wordmark has been prepared for marketing vehicles, advertising and other uses.
...That's right. Rather than simply leave most things as-is until November, and printing whatever doesn't need the full logo with the word "University" from now on, everybody is supposed to correct in red pen the current logo wherever it appears.
No joke. We all even got handed out red Sharpies at the ceremony.
I'm not exactly sure how environmentally friendly that is - how well will a million Sharpies decompose?
(And hey, theclamsman, any comments?)
I wonder what they're going to do about the fact that our old logo - a person with something that looks like a tulip for a body (and no, I don't know the story behind that one) - is carved in stone in every single wing of the building?
I see a lot of renovations in our future.
So this semester I'm taking:
- General Chemistry I [...Again. Yeah. This class will kill me.]
- Medicine and the Life Sciences [Actually an introductory medical terminology class...why they renamed it over the summer, I have no idea. Also, I have FIVE books for this class and a DVD.]
- Human Anatomy [Oh, and it's impossible to get used books for these courses because of course they're all newest-edition and come packaged with media crapola. Aargh.]
- Introduction to Sociology [Even this course uses brand-new books. Fuckers, fuckers, fuckers.]
- Statistics for Biological Sciences [This is the only course I could get a used book for. Bye-bye to $800! Hello books I'll only read once!]
And I have my locker, but it's way the hell and gone in the farthest possible corner of my school from my actual classes. Again, no joke - I'm in the very farthest wing from the science wing, and I have the VERY LAST LOCKER in the whole hallway, right at the very end.
On the other hand. It's in the Conservatory. Which means that the lockers - which are generally expected to go to the music students, who often put smaller musical instruments in their lockers - are roomy as hell. Plus, it's nice and quiet down there with the occasional strains of piano or violin music from nearby practice rooms.
I guess there could be worse places to have my locker...? I made the mistake of asking for the third floor without specifying the wing, is all - I guess the guy giving me the locker assumed I must be a music student, because what other nut would ask for the third floor on the first day of locker rentals?
(Answer: the trans student aware of the fact that the third-floor bathrooms are barely used. If you were wondering.)
But god, is that going to be a pain for those 8 am classes.
And I hope I don't end up with any Conservatory students annoyed at a Health Sciences major poaching one of their big-ass lockers.