Friday, April 16, 2010

From Day 0 - Part Seventeen

Ah, college days. My Mom and Grandfather took me on that two hour ride to Macomb, Illinois on a beautiful Saturday to confirm classes and move into my dorm. This was my first introduction to culture shock.

People were everywhere. There were lines of students for everything; for dorm room assignments; meal tickets; financial aid confirmation... lines everywhere. I was a proverbial fish out of water.

After it was over I was settled... After a day of tumult, confusion and culture shock it was done; classes confirmed and dorm room 1307 in Henninger Hall assigned.

At the time this was a 'men-only' dorm. Fourteen floors, two elevators and a seriously long climb to the 13th when the elevators were out of order.

My girlfriend came the next day and was assigned a room in Bayliss Hall. This was a good thing for us, as Bayliss is connected to Henninger by a common cafeteria.
The only two first semester classes that stand out in my mind are English 101 and a four or five credit pre-calculus class.

English was easy.

Pre-calc was the first class I had EVER failed. It was difficult and fast-paced and combined with my general culture shock, the results were not good.

F!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

razor's edge,

if you get this comment, send me an email. you can get an email to me
at the email listed here for "admin" (you can skip the site, it's political and policy and climate
crap.)

I thought it might be interesting to talk to you about wanting to live on a farm and the yearn for the farm -- you will find it interesting maybe and it is real
relevant for a book I am working on, also a farm related project.

also, quick take on kiwis -- you had a great kiwi post with a pic from the U of Wisconsin on the
various species-trying to find exactly what kiwi home depot is carrying here has been an adventure -- no one on their end (inclu their supplier) seems to be that interested in knowing (they think it is a. coriacea, which is an interesting choice.)

too bad about the hypoglycemia and the flying. that kinda blows. still, those apache helicopters are cool. good sickle/tibia story too by the way -- I got a few like that.
injuries on the farm or outdoors u just keep working, ignore the blood and dirt (clean it later though!) or hope the spider bite that's causing your hand to swell was not a b recluse; but you know it will let you know soon enough (gloves, who needs em)

kind of random. can't really go into more on a google comment form but doing kiwi research came across your well written kiwi article and expressions re farming, and thought it was worth trying to shoot you an
email but couldn't find one. send me one if you want at the email address at the link above, would be cool.

mq01 said...

oooooh razor, very cool comments from anonymous (above). sounds interesting at least :)