First week of classes

This week has gone by so quickly, probably because we're actually occupied during the day instead of sitting around watching bad British television.

Tuesday was the first day of class, and let me just say it was the most confusing first day of school I have ever had. I walked to my English class with ten minutes until class started. The entire way along, I was assaulted by people handing out flyers and selling snap packs that offer discounts all year long. Considering we get about thirty through our door every day anyway, I decided not to collect any more. Before we start getting more flyers, we need some tacks so we can put the ones we already have up on the wall.

I found the classroom alright, but everyone wondered if we had all showed up in the right place, because the professor didn't show up until five minutes after the hour. It looks to be a good class, though, and there are only 11 students, which will make a great class, I hope. However, our assignments every week are posted on WebCT, a program that Edinburgh uses. You must be registered for a class in order to access that class's posts. Though I am registered, it won't let me in, so I had to e-mail the professor to try to get it corrected.

Next, it was time to try to find where my philosophy class would take place. The location was not to be found online, nor was the location of the philosophy offices. I asked a receptionist in the David Hume Tower (where many of the departments have offices) if the philosophy department had an office there, but she said no. By this time, it's getting to noon, and I know that I have a meeting at 1:00 for the student newspaper (cleverly called Student, but it was founded by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so I guess I can forgive it). I went to the Arcadia office, where we are always welcome if we need help, and asked them if they could help me find the philosophy department.

Three phone calls later, we had not only the location of the department offices, but the location of my lecture. This is when it started to rain.

I took a fifteen-minute walk to the Pleasance, the optimistically-named home of many of the clubs and societies, stopping to grab a cup of tea and a bagel at one of the police box coffee shops (approximately 5 ft by 10 ft, standing on sidewalks) on the way for my lunch - which the Brits call dinner. There were a few people already there: the film editor, as well as a couple of freshers. Five minutes later, though, the large room was absolutely full with about sixty or seventy students wanting to write for and help produce the newspaper. At Wooster, we only have about 10 regular workers.

I signed up to do copyediting and to write for the film section, which means that if they like my writing style I'll get to go watch new movies on Friday afternoons for free and then write a review. But I had to leave relatively early, because my long-lost philosophy class was a fifteen-minute walk away.

This was the only class of the day in which we learned anything at all. The most important part, though, is that my lecturer has the exact same accent as Sean Connery, a trait not altogether common in the southern parts of Scotland.

After this, it was time to come home for a little while and eat an early dinner, because I didn't think I'd be back until 9. My Italian lecture was supposed to last two hours, after which I had to cross the Meadows (a huge park with a bad rep at night) with Joni to get to swing dance.

I went to the location that the online resources said that we would have our introductory meeting. There were about thirty of us in the classroom, but the professor was late. More than five minutes. We sat in relative unease for fifteen minutes before our Italian tutor finally walked through the door and said, with a strong Italian accent, "You are all in the wrong room."

We went to the 11th floor of the David Hume Tower, where five other students were waiting for us. Both our professor and our tutor swore up and down that the online resources said that we were supposed to show up in this room that overlooked the castle. So then why did thirty of the thirty-five of us show up in the other classroom? Because, basically, WebCT is a bad program.

Next, they kicked ten people out of the class, because it was only supposed to have 25 students, and the directors of studies who had let in the last 10 students were wrong to have let them in. Mine was the first name called for those who could stay, and I sank deeper into my chair with relief, thereafter looking out the window at the castle until the role call was finished fifteen minutes later (many students had argued that they did, in fact, belong there, and what would they do now that they couldn't stay?).

Class let out after only one hour. I walked back to Kincaid's, texting Joni to tell her we could meet there instead of in George Square. Another hour later, we set out, umbrellas (brellies) in hand.

We never found it.

Cold, slightly damp, and defeated, we sat in my kitchen to watch Bridget Jones's Diary with Anna and Rachel, followed later by Johnny Depp's Crybaby as more and more people joined us. Not a bad way to spend an evening.