college 101
Today was Day One of college life for me, and it wasn't as terrible as I thought it was going to be. So, if you're just that bored enough, I'm going to give the update as I promised and walk through my day.
First up was English 125. As I predicted, no familiar face in that class. The professor is Dr. Kirsten Fogh, and she's a short, middle aged woman who's quite enthusiastic and bubbly. There's evidence of some sort of either accent or speech impediment while she talks, but she still speaks quite clearly. I think I'll like her, too. Seems like most people from my class are from out-of-state, a trend that you'll see throughout my day, but it just adds to the diversity, for the most part. And, it was quite a relief to find out that no one else was able to find the books for this class, either, and I got an email from her after the class saying that the books were in at Shaman Drum. There's this one girl from Canada in my class, and she was born and raised in Hong Kong, so I'll have to take a moment to talk to her in the upcoming future. And there's a Korean guy, and a guy from Singapore, too. Probably the most memorable event of the class was when she was asking where all the students were from and said something to the extent of, "So there's no one here's who's like fresh off the boat or anything?" as the class roared in laughter. I smirked politely, and she followed it up with a "I hope I didn't offend anyone." Turns out that the Singapore kid was indeed an international student, but he didn't appear to be too offended. We have homework in that class for Friday (some reading), and we have to write a paper about "the writer within each of us" by Monday. Joy.
Let out of English about five minutes early, I made a point to get to Couzens, where my next class Sociology 105 is held. Too bad the walk was all the way from the Modern Languages Building, which is a good 10 minutes away. I did the Denny power walk and was able to get there with time to spare. As I walked in, Professor Schoem was already talking--because the class is a freshman seminar, it was held in this lounge--and I had to pull up a chair, annoyingly telling people, "Could I squeeze in here?" We played the infamous name game, which I thought I'd escaped upon high school graduation, but I guess not. At least I know everyone's name in there fairly well. And the diversity in the class is fairly refreshing, too. Again, lots of people from out of state (but at the same time, most people who are from out of state are paying big money to come here, so from a socioeconomic standpoint, the class looks rather similar). Professor Schoem appears to be a pretty easygoing sort of a guy, and I think the class will be a nice discussion oriented class. In addition to some reading we have to do, we also have to bring in something about our "social identity," for Monday. That's easier for some than others. I was trying to imagine being in the role of the white man, and what exactly could you bring? Perhaps I shouldn't worry about that, though. I haven't even figured out what I'm bringing. I believe his words were "something that represents either your race, gender, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status." An average white male--what could he bring in? It almost sounds like a ridiculous form of show and tell. Oh, and get this: no tests, and he cancelled the 10-12 page paper students from last semester had to take. Hahahaha. I love diversity. Ah, and so Sociology was the other class that I couldn't find books for. Well, it turns out that apparently they were in Shaman Drum the entire time, so after Spanish today, I went to pick them up. More on that later in the entry.
Class three is Economics 101 with Professor Paula Malone. Eh. Let's just say that we got let out of Sociology five minutes late, and so I was five minutes late for Econ. (note that the Denny power walk was very useful here, too) It's the lecture section that meets on Mondays and Wednesdays, so not only was I shocked by the number of students in the classroom (god knows how many hundreds), I was also surprised by the remaining number of seats left available. I managed to snag one near the very back. Professor Malone had already started, but it looks like she barely did. We took a bunch of notes and have to read Chapters 1-2 for Monday. I already read them (isn't that pathetic when I was really bored during Welcome Week), but it never hurts to look over the material again. And, she was kind enough to stop every now and then and ask, "Any questions?" Plus, she said that the class is curved so 1/4 of us get As and 1/3 get Bs, while the rest are Cs, Ds and Es. My thought was "When were Es invented?" But, I'm just hoping to work hard enough to that A, because I don't think it'll be impossible, but definitely a challenge. No name game here.
I have a nice two hour break in between Econ 101 and Spanish 275, so I went to grab lunch at MoJo (I still could because Malone let us out early). Got my stuff ready and went back for espanol. Ay! Let's just say that our teacher is NOT the type of Spanish teacher I'm used to having for the past three years. Through Spanish II to IV, I've had middle aged white women who've learned the language (probably in college and high school) as my profesoras. Professor Castro-Gerpe ran the entire class in Spanish, but it certainly wasn't Wilhelm's Spanish. Castro-Gerpe has this Castillian lisp, so I'm still having some difficulty adjusting to her accent. I understood all of what she was saying, except when she was talking about going online to Coursetools. I just went, and it didn't seem like I needed any of the information on there, so I emailed her (of course, en espanol). Other than that, we definitely have tarea for Friday. And, I'm one of a few freshmen in that class. We were paired up in groups of three, and I was stuck with a sophomore and junior. Thankfully, they were somewhat rustier than me, just because they'd waited (a) year(s) to take the class after high school. Other than that, Castro-Gerpe is young (for a profesora) and very nice. She almost reminds me of a Spanish Ugalde, who I think is Italian, minus the insanity factor, I hope.
After Spanish, I went to get my books and relevant coursepacks from Shaman Drum, Accucopy, Ulrichs and Dollar Billing and return the ones I bought for Chinese at Ulrichs. There were HUGE lines everywhere I went, but they moved relatively quickly. The only one that took what seemed to be forever was the return line at Ulrichs, because so many students were returning, but only two students were working at the counter...slowly, might I add. Anyway, when I got back to my dorm room, I decided to humor myself and add up the prices for all the books I've purchased and rang in a little over $250. Not bad, but still quite hole in the wallet. The reason why I say it's not too bad is that the University's Financial Aid department allots $1,000 into the cost of attendance here, $500 for each semester. Then, it was off to dinner, where I met a guy from Virginia, a guy from Ann Arbor (there are many here), and a guy from Dexter. I would type their names, but I forget them already. I need to work on names, maybe run a little name game of my own.
From move-in to today, anything worth mentioning that really happened was a) I met with my mentorship group, minus Tyler Arens, fellow mentee. It was me, a girl named Katy from Ann Arbor, Nina from New Jersey and our mentor Rachel Fox (no relation to Liz, unfortunately). Rachel's cool (and a College Democrat), and out of the two girl mentees, one is really nice and awesome to talk to, and the other is slightly annoying. Better than having both be ultra-annoying, I guess. Tomorrow, the group is meeting at the Cottage Inn prior to the Mentorship kick-off, so I should meet Tyler then. B) The second mentionable thing that happened was meeting a girl from Hong Kong (international student) in Mosher Jordan. She lives on the fifth floor, and we were conversing in Cantonese, making me realize how clumsy I am with the language. We were talking about music, and I don't think she's a Gigi fan, unfortunately. I said, "I like listening to Gigi Leung," and her response was "Oh," and she did the thing where she slightly nodded her head and smiled. She seems nice, though.
And with that, I'm off to the piles of homework I have. Thankfully, tomorrow's my day off--and the day I have laundry scheduled in. Happy back to school for everyone (everyone that that's applicable to). I'll try updating in the next week or so.
zaijian
First up was English 125. As I predicted, no familiar face in that class. The professor is Dr. Kirsten Fogh, and she's a short, middle aged woman who's quite enthusiastic and bubbly. There's evidence of some sort of either accent or speech impediment while she talks, but she still speaks quite clearly. I think I'll like her, too. Seems like most people from my class are from out-of-state, a trend that you'll see throughout my day, but it just adds to the diversity, for the most part. And, it was quite a relief to find out that no one else was able to find the books for this class, either, and I got an email from her after the class saying that the books were in at Shaman Drum. There's this one girl from Canada in my class, and she was born and raised in Hong Kong, so I'll have to take a moment to talk to her in the upcoming future. And there's a Korean guy, and a guy from Singapore, too. Probably the most memorable event of the class was when she was asking where all the students were from and said something to the extent of, "So there's no one here's who's like fresh off the boat or anything?" as the class roared in laughter. I smirked politely, and she followed it up with a "I hope I didn't offend anyone." Turns out that the Singapore kid was indeed an international student, but he didn't appear to be too offended. We have homework in that class for Friday (some reading), and we have to write a paper about "the writer within each of us" by Monday. Joy.
Let out of English about five minutes early, I made a point to get to Couzens, where my next class Sociology 105 is held. Too bad the walk was all the way from the Modern Languages Building, which is a good 10 minutes away. I did the Denny power walk and was able to get there with time to spare. As I walked in, Professor Schoem was already talking--because the class is a freshman seminar, it was held in this lounge--and I had to pull up a chair, annoyingly telling people, "Could I squeeze in here?" We played the infamous name game, which I thought I'd escaped upon high school graduation, but I guess not. At least I know everyone's name in there fairly well. And the diversity in the class is fairly refreshing, too. Again, lots of people from out of state (but at the same time, most people who are from out of state are paying big money to come here, so from a socioeconomic standpoint, the class looks rather similar). Professor Schoem appears to be a pretty easygoing sort of a guy, and I think the class will be a nice discussion oriented class. In addition to some reading we have to do, we also have to bring in something about our "social identity," for Monday. That's easier for some than others. I was trying to imagine being in the role of the white man, and what exactly could you bring? Perhaps I shouldn't worry about that, though. I haven't even figured out what I'm bringing. I believe his words were "something that represents either your race, gender, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status." An average white male--what could he bring in? It almost sounds like a ridiculous form of show and tell. Oh, and get this: no tests, and he cancelled the 10-12 page paper students from last semester had to take. Hahahaha. I love diversity. Ah, and so Sociology was the other class that I couldn't find books for. Well, it turns out that apparently they were in Shaman Drum the entire time, so after Spanish today, I went to pick them up. More on that later in the entry.
Class three is Economics 101 with Professor Paula Malone. Eh. Let's just say that we got let out of Sociology five minutes late, and so I was five minutes late for Econ. (note that the Denny power walk was very useful here, too) It's the lecture section that meets on Mondays and Wednesdays, so not only was I shocked by the number of students in the classroom (god knows how many hundreds), I was also surprised by the remaining number of seats left available. I managed to snag one near the very back. Professor Malone had already started, but it looks like she barely did. We took a bunch of notes and have to read Chapters 1-2 for Monday. I already read them (isn't that pathetic when I was really bored during Welcome Week), but it never hurts to look over the material again. And, she was kind enough to stop every now and then and ask, "Any questions?" Plus, she said that the class is curved so 1/4 of us get As and 1/3 get Bs, while the rest are Cs, Ds and Es. My thought was "When were Es invented?" But, I'm just hoping to work hard enough to that A, because I don't think it'll be impossible, but definitely a challenge. No name game here.
I have a nice two hour break in between Econ 101 and Spanish 275, so I went to grab lunch at MoJo (I still could because Malone let us out early). Got my stuff ready and went back for espanol. Ay! Let's just say that our teacher is NOT the type of Spanish teacher I'm used to having for the past three years. Through Spanish II to IV, I've had middle aged white women who've learned the language (probably in college and high school) as my profesoras. Professor Castro-Gerpe ran the entire class in Spanish, but it certainly wasn't Wilhelm's Spanish. Castro-Gerpe has this Castillian lisp, so I'm still having some difficulty adjusting to her accent. I understood all of what she was saying, except when she was talking about going online to Coursetools. I just went, and it didn't seem like I needed any of the information on there, so I emailed her (of course, en espanol). Other than that, we definitely have tarea for Friday. And, I'm one of a few freshmen in that class. We were paired up in groups of three, and I was stuck with a sophomore and junior. Thankfully, they were somewhat rustier than me, just because they'd waited (a) year(s) to take the class after high school. Other than that, Castro-Gerpe is young (for a profesora) and very nice. She almost reminds me of a Spanish Ugalde, who I think is Italian, minus the insanity factor, I hope.
After Spanish, I went to get my books and relevant coursepacks from Shaman Drum, Accucopy, Ulrichs and Dollar Billing and return the ones I bought for Chinese at Ulrichs. There were HUGE lines everywhere I went, but they moved relatively quickly. The only one that took what seemed to be forever was the return line at Ulrichs, because so many students were returning, but only two students were working at the counter...slowly, might I add. Anyway, when I got back to my dorm room, I decided to humor myself and add up the prices for all the books I've purchased and rang in a little over $250. Not bad, but still quite hole in the wallet. The reason why I say it's not too bad is that the University's Financial Aid department allots $1,000 into the cost of attendance here, $500 for each semester. Then, it was off to dinner, where I met a guy from Virginia, a guy from Ann Arbor (there are many here), and a guy from Dexter. I would type their names, but I forget them already. I need to work on names, maybe run a little name game of my own.
From move-in to today, anything worth mentioning that really happened was a) I met with my mentorship group, minus Tyler Arens, fellow mentee. It was me, a girl named Katy from Ann Arbor, Nina from New Jersey and our mentor Rachel Fox (no relation to Liz, unfortunately). Rachel's cool (and a College Democrat), and out of the two girl mentees, one is really nice and awesome to talk to, and the other is slightly annoying. Better than having both be ultra-annoying, I guess. Tomorrow, the group is meeting at the Cottage Inn prior to the Mentorship kick-off, so I should meet Tyler then. B) The second mentionable thing that happened was meeting a girl from Hong Kong (international student) in Mosher Jordan. She lives on the fifth floor, and we were conversing in Cantonese, making me realize how clumsy I am with the language. We were talking about music, and I don't think she's a Gigi fan, unfortunately. I said, "I like listening to Gigi Leung," and her response was "Oh," and she did the thing where she slightly nodded her head and smiled. She seems nice, though.
And with that, I'm off to the piles of homework I have. Thankfully, tomorrow's my day off--and the day I have laundry scheduled in. Happy back to school for everyone (everyone that that's applicable to). I'll try updating in the next week or so.
zaijian