Kate's blog: Lots and lots of Jelly Tots!

Wow! A lot has happened in the past few days so this could be quite long. Or not – it all depends on how tired I get! Well, it would be logical to start at the beginning but I’m not quite sure when that was so I’ll start at the end and see where I finish up.

I have a place to stay! Admittedly I have one already at Marge’s house but this is my own place. It’s right next to SDSU – literally across the street which is super convenient. The university gym is about 100m away and if I want to catch the bus or trolley I just have to walk through campus. It’s not in university housing though, it’s in a privately owned apartment building. It’s a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom place with a huge living area. I have a roommate, a really nice girl called Sarah. She’s from somewhere in California and is doing a liberal studies major which essentially means she want to be a primary school teacher. I know, I didn’t get it either – still don’t in fact.

It looks like a really nice, fun place to live though (aside from the super-convenient bit). All 32units are occupied by students but not 1st years and the manager is quite particular as to who she rents to which is a good thing as SDSU has a HUGE rep for being a party school. It apparently made the news for the past 3 years for STD epidemics on campus! I though that was really funny and just had to share it! So most of the people living there are a bit older (at least 3rd year) and hopefully wiser :-)

I’ll probably move in on Friday. Sarah has all the stuff we need for an apartment which is great. I just need to furnish my room. We’ve sent out an email asking if any Rotarians have spare stuff (like a bed!) but haven’t had any responses so far so it looks like I’m going shopping. It was quite funny – I went there today and Sarah was moving in. The only problem is that we’re on the 3rd floor (with ground level being the first floor) and the stairs are really narrow so to get couches and beds up there is an issue. So her dad and some of the guys who were roped in to help (no pun intended) were hauling the furniture up over the balcony! It was quite a sight!

Today we had orientation at the International Student Centre and then Ecos orientation. They had ‘breakfast’ out when we arrived at the ISC – coffee and donuts. I had a lemon jelly donut which was an interesting experience and one I don’t think I’ll be repeating too soon! Basically I took this donut which was round and smaller than the other huge rings and looked plain. All was good until my second bite when this lumo yellowish liquid started oozing out. Not what I had expected! Luckily there was an orientation volunteer sitting at the same table as me so I asked him, “What is this?!” All was explained and after a few very sweet bites coupled with the rather unpleasant fake lemony taste I abandoned the rest. Like I said, not to be repeated!

The orientation itself was rather useful (read: necessary but boring). I thought beaurocracy was a speciality of UKZN but apparently not! Let’s jut say that lots of paperwork seems to be involved with everything! At least they tell you about it upfront though and I now know the right people to talk to. To give you an example, in order to graduate you have to file your course of study with someone (the graduate office possibly?? Forgot that bit), and in order to get a course of study you have to meet with a graduate advisor and basically map out all the courses you’re going to do. Then you have to submit something called an ‘intent to graduate’ and you only do this at the beginning of the semester you are going to finish your degree in. Presumably after all this you’re allowed to graduate (provided you pass everything that is…) If you don’t do all this you cant though. I was like huh? All that happened at UKZN was that you got a thing saying ‘degree complete’ on your academic record then you get a letter about grad and when it is and that’s it!

I met some cool people though! They started us off with some icebreakers – basically you had to go to the sign that applied to you and meet two other people. So the first round was what college you’re in (College being the Faculty I guess). So I’m in the College of Arts and Letters and I tootled off there. I met a couple of other ecos students – one from Thailand. Then we had to go to our favourite sport. The choices were somewhat limited so I went to cricket…. Along with all the Indians! Indian Indians. I felt a bit outnumbered and decided that that wasn’t the time for smart comments about match fixing. The interesting bit came when the categories were favourite type of music. A girl from Turkey told me that the Killers are coming to play in San Diego – must investigate! I made friends with a really nice girl from Canada. We might go on the ‘City tour’ with the ISC this weekend. I also chatted to people from Germany, Japan, Australia and Korea. All over actually! Of the foreign students, the biggest proportion come from India followed by a variety of Asian countries. It was interesting.

I had Ecos orientation in the afternoon. I was worried about being late so I skipped lunch at the ISC and went straight there. Our Masters class is quite big – there are 26 of us starting this semester. There are also about 20 continuing students (the degree takes a minimum of 3 semesters). The class is about half American, half international students (all Asian except me). There are more guys then girls and quite a few of the Americans have just finished their degrees (in June) and are continuing with their Masters. It seems like a nice class – no doubt I’ll be able to elaborate on this further after classes start on Monday.

I think now is the appropriate time for me to share my timetable with you. I have 3 core classes (Micro, Econometrics, Econometrics Lab (aka prac) and one elective (International Economics).

How cool is that?? No lectures on a Friday and please note the time I start varsity! Of course you have to do a fair amount of work on your own but still! I’m contemplating applying for a job at the library because I have the time (quite obviously) and then I’d have extra money to travel.

After the orientation I went with Jaren (the son of Dad’s best friend from University who’s coincidentally also doing an Ecos Masters) to the book shop to get our textbooks. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention, when I registered for my classes I registered online! It was so cool (and took all of 3 minutes). So when you need to get your textbooks there’s no waiting to look in a grotty file that may or may not have your required textbooks in it, all you do is log on to the computer system and you can print off your personal book list. Then you wonder around the book shop (everything’s in alphabetical order with signs) and just pick up the books you need.

Why is it that Economics textbooks are the biggest, heaviest and most expensive?? I bought 3 textbooks and they cost $350! How hectic is that?? And they were all second hand. The bookshop has a system where you can sell your textbooks back to them provided they’re in excellent condition. So I got a significant discount on my textbooks and they’re all like new but it was still $350! I’m in shock. You actually can’t convert stuff into Rand – you’d have permanent heart failure!

Ooh… another exciting announcement – I met the Mayor of San Diego last night. I don’t think I’ve ever met dear old Obed even though I’ve lived in Durban all my life! I went to a Rotary function – the chartering of a new Rotary club – and he was the guest speaker. It was at the Mirimar Officers club. Mirimar is a massive US Marine air base – it’s like a small city, there’s even a McDonalds on it! Random fact for the day: San Diego has the premier medical facility in the USA for treating injured soldiers. The Colonel in charge of the base told us he’d just met two soldiers who’d just been flown back from Iraq – one of whom had lost the lower part of his leg – not nice.

It was a really nice function – it was smart so we all got to dress up nicely! (Above is a picture of Marge and I taken at the function). The speakers were interesting (the Colonel and the Mayor) and the food was good (Americans call prawns, shrimp. I got extra because I don’t eat red meat! Actually, that was a bit odd – it was a plated meal so you were served a plate with some veges, mashed potato, a steak and a little bowl of large peeled prawns – it’s like they couldn’t make their mind up about what to serve so served both! Anyway). I got introduced to soooo many people! My head was practically swimming with names.

The new Rotary club they chartered is really interesting. Rotary is mostly made up of older males worldwide. So there’s a big push to get younger people involved. The new club is called the La Jolla (a place in San Diego) new generations club and is made up of only younger people – 24 to 43. The average age of the club is 32 and there are half males and half females which is quite different to the rotary norm! They meet on Wednesday evenings just after work and they meet in a bar (or a sports grill as they put it!). So it’s a fun social occasion that people want to go to as well as doing something good for your community! The club president made a very good point in his speech – he said (to all the other Rotarians there) that if you look at our club we have bankers, lawyers, real estate agents etc. We’re just like you, we’re just a bit younger. It’s such a simple idea but it’s really worked – the club’s only just been formed and already they have new, young members signing up.

That’s about all from me for today (she says 3 pages later)! I guess I didn’t get that tired after all! Tomorrow I’m off to the horse racing at Del Mar which is about half an hour away from downtown San Diego. I’ve never actually been to the races in Durban but I’m going in San Diego – typical! It should be fun!

Ooh, I just thought of more stuff and hadn’t posted this yet so this just got longer, I’m waiting for Marge to finish on the internet so am writing this in Word … I wrote a cheque today! Never done that before so I had no clue what to do! Luckily I got help without anyone laughing too much! Quite a few places accept cheques here, there’s no charge for using them and credit cards aren’t always accepted. I’ve ordered a cheque book – I could have got a cute one with Tigger or Garfield (or any other cartoon character for that matter) on it for 12$ extra! I saw no point in paying $30 for 120 cheques when I could pay $18 for blue ones. I’m just going to give them away anyway. Other thing’s I’ve got while I’ve been here include: