First Day of School

Well. Today was rainy and interesting.

First some things I've been meaning to say... They never have napkins. Anywhere. Ever. And they're messy eaters.

Second: Sophie is right. Americans are just nicer.  They say, "Hi, how are you?" and "Have a good day." And are helpful and smiley and just... nicer.  There was a lady at a hawker stand in the mall that I went back to the second time we ate their simply because she was nice.  People run into you, they ignore you, they won't help you, they won't look at you. It's a cold, cold world.  Maybe it makes up for how hot it is outside. I don't know. But I now understand Southern Hospitality and why it is so special.

Anyways. We got up and had breakfast in the apartment. It's time to start saving for our travels. We hopped on our bikes and took a new route to school. It was better (not as hilly) and took us closer to where we needed to go. On the way, we stopped by the gym on campus.  We were both unimpressed.  There was a small machines room, two large gyms, a small weight room and a large office. And it was all un-air-conditioned. There was however, a nice 50-meter pool with 8 lanes... but no lane lines. We'll try it tomorrow.

We got to Canteen B, which is a huge hawker-style food court at the end of the south spine, which is where most of our classes are. I got a disgusting sour plum frozen fruit juice thing and Gabe laughed at me, having experienced the flavor before.

We walked to our classrooms to make sure we could find them - his was a lecture hall (they're numbered and on the main spine), mine was HSS TR+1 which means Humanities and Social Sciences (building) Tutorial Room (number) 1, which was on the 3rd basement, and very confusing. Ended up that I didn't even have the class yet because it was a review/homework help session sort of thing. Gabe says they have them at Tech (recitation), but we don't have them at Clemson.  So I went to the Humanities Library, which was nice and had only humanities books. I didn't have much time before I was going to meet Gabe.  We were going to get lunch, but the whole school lets out for lunch during my one hour break, so the lines were too long for me to get food.

My next class was after an hour break in SPMS LT4.  Now, every class so far that had "LT" meant lecture theater, and are on the main spines and so I thought I was all good. So I went to LT 4, which was on the north spine about a 10 minute walk from where I had been on the south spine.  LT 4 was empty 5 minutes before my class, and I knew that this one wasn't a tutorial thing.  So I started asking. SPMS apparently means School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and has it's own numbering system.  It's really nice how we never got a tour of campus and didn't even tell us where our classes were, properly.  Anyways, I arrived to class (which was literally two minutes from where I started) about 20 minutes late. The room was packed and I joined the others on the floor in the back. The guy was going over the syllabus, and it looked like classes I had already taken.  He started giving his lecture for the last hour and a half of class (yeah, these classes are two hours, btw).  When he gave a break about an hour into the class, I went up and asked about the course material and turns out it is exactly the class I already took.  So I left.  I learned more in the 40 minutes of lecture than I did in an entire semester, but he taught what I needed to understand that previous semester.

I didn't just give up, though.  There was another class in the same time slot that I wanted to take that's required for my degree at Clemson, so I slipped over there... An hour late, mind you. It was a globalization class in sociology.  Sociology teachers like to have class involvement... So she asked a lot of questions and got a quiet room.  When she was clearly getting frustrated by the lack of volunteers, I started talking.  She asked about the history of globalization and asked about previous examples.  I mentioned the Roman empire and Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan's empire.  The only one she picked up on was Genghis Khan... And then added in the Ottoman empire.  I should add that this professor was not Asian, and sounded either Austrian or Eastern European. It was interesting since I would have a tendency to think of more western rulers and civilizations, and those in the Far East clearly don't.

Anyways, after class I met up with Gabe and we went and had lunch back at Canteen B.  I had a "point and choose meal" where you get rice and a various number of meats and veggies, and you pick them by pointing, kindof like a cafeteria (S&S).  It was delicious, but then Gabe and Shreyas had a class, so I headed back to the library. I checked out some books (they have a really interesting RFID tagging systems so there's no need for librarians) and found the bookstore (by accident, but I FINALLY found postcards).  I met up with the boys and they went over and had dinner at yet another canteen.  We hit up the library after so I could change my classes. I'm in three of the classes I want, and hopefully the other two will be added for me.

For the record, NTU is stupid.  They have to approve you before you can take a class.  None of the American style - the class has prereqs, but it's up to you to make sure you have them and are ready to take the class, and you can take any class you could ever possibly want whether or not you're in that major.  No. NTU you have to be approved.  I was told I wasn't approved, but to "try adding it during the add/drop period." Yeah. The system kicked me out because I had "not been approved" for it. Even though they had. Also, now I don't know if I'll get the classes because the vacancies got taken even though I was on it first. Gah. There's been no one to help except for the one American professor who happens to be the undergraduate coordinator for sociology.  There's that Southern Hospitality again (he's from Tennessee).

So after the fiasco that was my schedule, we came back to the apartment.  We've showered and now it's time for bed.

P.S. I've updated a lot of blog posts with pictures, so check them out. =]

Goodnight-la.