So I've been at Carleton University for a grand total of 7 days. It's been fraught with activities and problems already. There's nothing like starting your graduate career off with a violent rape the day orientation begins as well as a strike by the administrative staff.
On our first night of orientation, all the grad students went for a Haunted Walk tour of Ottawa. I forgot how much fun those things were! We had a really good guide named Margo who made the evening really fun for us. Afterwards we all tromped over to a pub for a meet and greet.
Other fun activities have included campus tours (and yes, I classified this as fun), pizza parties, more pub activities (I don't think we've had a single activity that hasn't included alcohol), trips to Dow's lake, movies, BBQs, and so on.
Last night was the "highlight" of orientation week - it was a boat cruise along the Rideau River. It was so much fun! We had free food and could buy alcohol. The top floor was reserved for dancing and boy, did we dance! They even had a contest to find the worst dancer, who then won $500 in dance lessons. (The contest was done to "Dancing Queen" by Abba.)
After the three hour cruise, we ended up moving to the Byward Market to a bar named Helsinki. The place was uber-swank, but also expensive. :S It was nearly $9 for a martini! (Mind you, they were absolutely delicious!) By this time, I was losing my voice and getting tired of having to repeat the whole spiel of, "Hi, my name is so and so, this is my program, etc."
Another grad student, Clarissa and I ended up leaving the bar and going to a salsa club nearby with some of her roommates and their friends. I had such a blast. The place was called Rumba, and it had a terrific live band!
Luckily the bus system here runs really late, so I was able to catch a bus home around 1:15am. Huzzah!
On the academic side of things, life has been a bit chaotic. Because of the strike, students in my program cannot add or drop classes. Therefore people (like myself) are locked in classes they don't want to take, and can't find out if there's even room in the classes they do want to be in.
I went to my program's resource centre to try and get some of the readings that I are due for tomorrow's classes... That was such an ordeal! You have to photocopy the readings, and the only way to photocopy is to use your campus card... Which I don't have.
You see, technically I'm not registered with Carelton University yet. They still need to see my official grades from Waterloo which won't be available until September 21. So until then, I can't register for courses, get student bus passes, access the wireless networks, my school email accounts, do laundry, or anything! It's such an ordeal.
So that's what I'm dealing with right now. I guess I should go and finish my readings for class tomorrow. Wish me luck with my first day of classes as a graduate student!
No comments:
Post a Comment