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kitewithfishSo, I got up this morning with a list of things to get done. First, I went to the bank- and I suddenly have so much more sympathy for people who have to function in a foreign language. Financial vocabulary, like cooking, tends to be very specific, and has the added stress that you feel silly for having to ask. I was, however, able to deposit (einzahlen, for those of you wondering) the amount of money I needed to for my rent, which will be automatically deducted at the end of the week.
I was also considering going the registry and giving them my new address, but I decided that I had freaked myself out enough with the banking issue, and just left it for tomorrow morning.
Later, Alexandra and Ana and I did a little tour of the University, focused on finding the rooms that we would need when we started classes tomorrow.
However, shortly after returning home, I was talking to Colleen online, who, while traveling, had not been able to register for classes. We both wanted to take this one proseminar on historical crime fiction (for which one really just gets to read novels and write about them, which seems highly wonderful,) but there was a really long waiting list. She was describing to me the email that the professor had sent her, telling her that it was unlikely for her to get in based on her place in the waiting list. I suddenly began to recognize things she said, in English, as being very similar to the email that I'd gotten from the same professor. I realized that we'd gotten the same email, and I went to check on my 'registration' after all. It turns out that getting on the wait list here, the computer doesn't give you a sad message about not being able to register- it simply gives you a number, and notes somewhere else the size limit on the class. My number: 83. The size limit: 45.
So, it suddenly became clear to me that I was not going to be able to take the two proseminars that I had wanted. Which meant my schedule had just changed rather drastically.
Fortunately, I had a number of backup classes that I had looked at before deciding on my final list, and several of them had already been approved by the my major advisor back at home. So, I should actually be alright, and have the same number of classes as before. I just no longer have the proseminars (which are classes of roughly 40 people that terminate in a 15 page research paper and a presentation to your peers.) I only have lecture classes that are about really rather huge and impersonal, but have less work attached to them because of the sheer numbers involved.
As my parents have continually stated, the Wellesley way of doing classes, with small classes and lots of writing, is absolutely bizarre and I should not expect to see anything like that anywhere else. But I would kind of have liked to try to see how I would have faired, trying to work in German at the same level that I do in English. Perhaps next semester it will work out better. I will have speedy fingers.
So, with the change of my schedule, comes a new realization. Because the classes here do not have to start at the same time, I no longer have any classes that start this week. Well, only one, but that's on Friday in the evening, and I'm honestly not sure I want to take that class at all.
Essentially, I am in the same situation as I would have been in last week, had I not decided to go to Milan- I am in a strange city, somewhat isolated, without the academic output that has characterized most of my life, and without an automatic social group to fall back on. I'm not sure what exactly this will do to me. In the past, I've tended to find some sort of artistic outlet for myself, and here that might end up being the case. I also might devote my time and energy to hunting down a bookstore that sells Moleskine City notebooks. (I mentioned these in an earlier post, but I would just like once more to look over how awesome they seem. Maps, street listings [which my map does not have], places for scribbling and notes about interesting things in different parts of the city- the idea of having one of these things is so nice that I really think I would like to get one of them as a counterpart to my journals.)
I was also considering going the registry and giving them my new address, but I decided that I had freaked myself out enough with the banking issue, and just left it for tomorrow morning.
Later, Alexandra and Ana and I did a little tour of the University, focused on finding the rooms that we would need when we started classes tomorrow.
However, shortly after returning home, I was talking to Colleen online, who, while traveling, had not been able to register for classes. We both wanted to take this one proseminar on historical crime fiction (for which one really just gets to read novels and write about them, which seems highly wonderful,) but there was a really long waiting list. She was describing to me the email that the professor had sent her, telling her that it was unlikely for her to get in based on her place in the waiting list. I suddenly began to recognize things she said, in English, as being very similar to the email that I'd gotten from the same professor. I realized that we'd gotten the same email, and I went to check on my 'registration' after all. It turns out that getting on the wait list here, the computer doesn't give you a sad message about not being able to register- it simply gives you a number, and notes somewhere else the size limit on the class. My number: 83. The size limit: 45.
So, it suddenly became clear to me that I was not going to be able to take the two proseminars that I had wanted. Which meant my schedule had just changed rather drastically.
Fortunately, I had a number of backup classes that I had looked at before deciding on my final list, and several of them had already been approved by the my major advisor back at home. So, I should actually be alright, and have the same number of classes as before. I just no longer have the proseminars (which are classes of roughly 40 people that terminate in a 15 page research paper and a presentation to your peers.) I only have lecture classes that are about really rather huge and impersonal, but have less work attached to them because of the sheer numbers involved.
As my parents have continually stated, the Wellesley way of doing classes, with small classes and lots of writing, is absolutely bizarre and I should not expect to see anything like that anywhere else. But I would kind of have liked to try to see how I would have faired, trying to work in German at the same level that I do in English. Perhaps next semester it will work out better. I will have speedy fingers.
So, with the change of my schedule, comes a new realization. Because the classes here do not have to start at the same time, I no longer have any classes that start this week. Well, only one, but that's on Friday in the evening, and I'm honestly not sure I want to take that class at all.
Essentially, I am in the same situation as I would have been in last week, had I not decided to go to Milan- I am in a strange city, somewhat isolated, without the academic output that has characterized most of my life, and without an automatic social group to fall back on. I'm not sure what exactly this will do to me. In the past, I've tended to find some sort of artistic outlet for myself, and here that might end up being the case. I also might devote my time and energy to hunting down a bookstore that sells Moleskine City notebooks. (I mentioned these in an earlier post, but I would just like once more to look over how awesome they seem. Maps, street listings [which my map does not have], places for scribbling and notes about interesting things in different parts of the city- the idea of having one of these things is so nice that I really think I would like to get one of them as a counterpart to my journals.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 05:44 am (UTC)