Tuesday, July 12, 2005
The Trip to the USA...And College
So, I'm in the USA. I had an interesting trip over here. The bottom line is simply this: the Atlanta airport really sucks.
My flight from El Salvador to Atlanta was fine. For some strange reason, it seems like I always end up going on the same flight or ride as teachers as my school. Two years ago, I saw Mr. MacClure. I can't remember who I saw last year, but I probably saw someone. A few weeks ago, Mr. Murgatroyd was on the same bus ride back from Guatemala with me. And this time, it turned out Mr. Morgan was going to be on my flight to Atlanta.
That was a pretty neat coincidence. He was able to tell me what I made on my IB exams - I got 38 points! Woohoo! For those of you who don't know, the minimum amount of points required to graduate is 26, I think. Something like that. The maximum amount possible is 44 or 45. So yeah, I did good. On a scale of 1-7, I made a 7 in Spanish (not a big surprise, since I took it at the easiest level) and English at Higher Level. I made a 6 in Computers Higher Level and History Higher Level. I did the worst in Math and Biology - 5. Oh well. I also made an A on my Extended Essay, which is really good. What's weird is that the IB gave me a C in TOK. I don't know anyone who made a B or an A, even though we were awarded A's in class. Strange. I'm going to find out what it takes to appeal that decision.
Anyways, Mr. Morgan and I were able to help each other get through customs. Then he was off to a hotel to spend the night, before flying to San Francisco the next day. He was going to spend a week with a friend he hadn't seen in around 50 years. I think that's incredible - this guy randomly found his picture on the school website, asked if it was the Glynn Morgan he knew from college, and it was. What a crazy coincidence.
Well, my ticket said I had to be at gate B10 for my flight to Greensboro. But I noticed on one of the monitors that it said my flight had been changed to gate E15. Since I was already in E terminal, I decided to check it out. I went to E15, and no one was around. Just a sign that said that was the place to be for a flight to Florida. So I assumed the flight hadn't been changed, and was at B10. So I went all the way to B terminal. There was a big signing saying that this was the flight to Florida, and the flight to Greensboro was moved to E15. The monitors said the same thing, so I walked all the way back to the E terminal. The monitors and signs still said that this was the gate for the flight to Florida. After going up to the Delta desk twice, I was finally informed that yeah, I needed to be at E15. Someone just hadn't gotten around to changing the sign yet.
By this point I'm exhausted. Nobody should have to walk around an airport that much just to find their gate. So I sit down by my gate. The flight is supposed to leave in around 40 minutes, and there's still no one at the desk. Finally, this lady shows up. She tells me that there's a problem since Hurricane Cindy is close by, and my flight will be delayed. Great. I sit there for a while longer. Then I decide to go get something to eat.
I go to Burger King, and order a burger. Turns out the only thing they have left is a chicken sandwich. Fine. I order that, and then proceed to wait. The cashier is completely clueless as to what she's doing. The girls in the back are spending most of their time standing around and talking. When they actually do work, they work at a very slow pace. There's only one guy - thank you very much for doing your job, whoever you are - who actually seems to be putting forth some effort. Twenty minutes and a few very frustrated customers later, I have my food.
I go back to the gate - by this time, my flight is around half an hour late leaving. After ten more minutes, the airport opens back up, and we finally get to board. Yay. So I get on the plane. Sit down. Wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
The whole airport had been closed down, so there were backed up flights everwhere. Tons of planes needed to land and take off. I was sitting in the plane for at least an hour, slowly inching closer and closer to the runway, before finally taking off. Talk about a boring way to spend an hour of your life. All in all, I was around 2 hours late arriving. From what I've heard, the Atlanta Airport isn't a very good airport even when there isn't a hurricane. I hope I don't have to fly Delta again any time soon!
Anyways...I'm here. I didn't do much for a few days. Just chill out and go shopping for a few things I'd need in college. I saw Spaceballs. It had been a while since I'd seen it, but I was in the mood for a Star Wars spoof. Overall, it's a pretty funny movie. Some of the jokes are really hilarious; others are just really bad and lame. But oh well. The good outweighs the bad. Besides, it's a spoof classic - it was even referenced during a presentation at Orientation.
Speaking of which, yeah, I just got back from Orientation. I now know a lot more about what it's going to be like at NCSU in August. The campus is freakin' huge! Then again, with thirty thousand students, it'd have to be. I only know my way around a few areas on campus; I'm still lost about the rest.
Overall, Orientation was so-so. Some of the presentations were interesting, and others were really boring. I had to walk a lot. The food wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but that may be just because the parents were there too. There were times when I was really bored and wanted to leave, but I did have some interesting experiences.
For one, it's a really interesting student environment. There isn't as much diversity as I'd like - supposedly, 90% of the students are from North Carolina - and I'm not used to being around so many white people. It feels weird to be a majority again.
As many guys pointed out, there are a ton of girls in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. I think they outnumber us guys by around 4 to 1. Lots of guys were like, "The girls are so hot here! This is great! *drool*", but I just miss Souwa. Blegh.
I was staying in a suite with some others guys. I was lucky, and most of the guys in my dorm were Christians, or at least claimed to be. They were pretty cool, and we hung out some at night. Before I get into the details, I might as well mention this:
During one of the presentations for parents, a staff member told them: "Yes, there are laws prohibiting students that are under 21 from drinking, and drugs are not allowed. However, don't assume that the majority of people here will pay any attention to those laws. I can pretty much guarantee that your child will be invited to go to a party and get drunk and smoke pot during the first week...if not the first day."
Well, as it turns out, people decided not to wait until the first day to start partying. There was evidently a huge party happening on the floor beneath mine. A few of the guys in my suite and I went down to see what was up. As soon as we entered the hall we were met by some people I got the impression my roommates had met earlier in the day. I don't know if when they met before these guys were sober, but they certainly weren't now. I think they were high, too. Wow. I haven't even started college yet, and I already have the opportunity to drink and do drugs. What a reassuring discovery.
My suite was also the victim of vandalism. A few of us went to the student lounge a few doors down to play some foosball at 1:00 AM. When we came back around 20 minutes later, the door of our suite was standing wide open. Someone had turned on a faucet in our bathroom and just left it running, and the bathroom floor was completely flooded. Some of the water seeped into my room. At first I thought it was a just a little bit, so I tried to wipe it up with my towel. Once my towel was completely soaked, I realized how much water there was. It was a lot. There was nothing to do except leave it there and hope it evaporated before too long. We were all really annoyed about it.
Another interesting thing happened, too. We were out on the balcony looking out at the campus, and we noticed a guy and a girl in the hall on the floor beneath ours. It was obvious they were flirting with each other, getting ready to make out. I didn't see the girl's face, but one of my roommates knew her and said she had a boyfriend. I'm not surprised - there was this atmosphere around her that practically screamed SLUTTY TEENAGE FEMALE. As for the guy, he probably had AVERAGE TEENAGE MALE written somewhere on his forehead. We watched them for a few minutes, and sure enough, he went in for a kiss and they started making out. At this point, my roommates started waving their arms trying to get his attention - they gave him the thumbs up sign, and acted really enthusiastic about his decision to make out with this girl in front of us all. He looked up, saw us, laughed, and we ducked down before the girl could see us. Then they disappeared, probably to go continue their activity elsewhere. It was really funny. My roommates were crazy, but as long as they weren't stoned or drunk that was fine with me.
Speaking of making out, there was a really great presentation on "Community Issues", one section of which dealt with sex. It encouraged us all to have a safe, healthy sex life while we're at NCSU. It reminded us to always use condoms and showed some pictures of STDs - that's enough to almost make me want to never have sex in my life. I'm going to have nightmares about public hair lice and genital/oral herpes. Lucky for us, the Student Health Center will give us each up to three free condoms per day! Oh well, I guess I should have expected as much. This is a very large state university; it would be crazy for them to advise something like, I don't know, abstinence. I mean, it's not like that would help prevent STDs, right?
Here's some scary statistics: if I remember correctly, they said that probably 1 out of 4 girls will be sexually assaulted. With guys, it's 1 out of 10. Isn't that just a little high? Are hillbilly hormones really that strong? They said that if you're ever sexually assaulted, it'll probably be by someone you know. Which means that logically, there is a way to get through all four years of college without ever risking being raped: don't get to know anyone. Go to your classes and your dorm, nowhere else. Don't talk to anyone. Then you'll be safe.
That is, until your roommate murders you in your sleep because you don't respond to him at all. It's rape or death. Take your pick.
But yeah, that's college. I guess I'm a little more optimistic about it now than I was before. They lost my housing application, so I turned in another one, and got placed in Avent-Ferry - it's this dorm that's kinda off campus and really far away from all my classes, but hey, it's better than nothing. There's also a chance that I'll get moved to Becton before school starts, which would be awesome, since that dorm is near all my classes and is being completely renovated. Also, I found out why I wasn't invited to be in the Honors program or to receive any merit-based scholarships. Their computer system for sorting students has a major flaw, in that automatically sorts students with SAT scores over 1300 and GPAs of over 3.5 into those groups. Well, I met the SAT requirement, but for some reason since I studied at an international high school my GPA was left blank. That's why I didn't get any of the benefits I should have gotten - I fell through the cracks of the system. They're going to try and see if they can get me at least a little scholarship money, so that's cool. It seems like all my administration problems are finally starting to be worked out, little by little.
Also: registering for classes is a pain. I had to wait in line for over and hour, and then when I finally did sit down to register for classes, I realized that they can't expect a freshman to register in half an hour for less. It's crazy. Most of the courses I wanted to take were already filled, and I didn't want to be put on a wait-list unless it was absolutely necessary. Luckily, I was able to work out a few of my problems after I got home. Here are the classes I'm currently signed up for:
ENG 252 - Major American Writers: Woohoo, my first English literature class!
FLS 308 - Spanish Conversation and Reading: I automatically placed into this upper level Spanish class since I'm pretty much fluent already. I'd start Chinese, but if I take this class I'll get 9 hours credit. I can't pass that up.
PE 240 - Social Dance: Yes, that's right, I'm taking a dance class. I wanted to go ahead and get my PE requirement out of the way, since the classes don't take up very much time. There were tons of options to choose from, but in the end I figured I might as well go with this. I won't be the only guy in there, so that's good. Besides, this class will probably be better in the long run than say, Bowling.
PHI 221 - Contemporary Moral Issues: I have to take at least one Philosophy course in order to graduate, so I thought I might as well go ahead and take this. Besides, I might be interested in taking other Philosophy courses in the future, so this will give me a good introduction to that field of study. I'll get to study and analyze a lot of world issues like euthnasia, suicide, abortion, etc. Should be interesting.
PS 236 - Issues in Global Politics: A political science course. This will count as one of four Social Science credits I'm required to acquire before I graduate. I wasn't planning on taking any Political Science classes, but this one sounded okay. It'll be on things like wars, women's rights, terrorism, etc.
SOC 204 - Sociology of Family: I want to take other courses in Sociology in the future, so this is a good introduction, as well as counting for another social science credit. This class will deal with familiar matters, such as what makes up a family, mate selection, marriage, divorce, etc. I don't know why, but for some reason that sounds really interesting to me. My mom says it'll probably be taught from an extremely liberal viewpoint and promote homosexuality. If that's the case, I probably won't like it. But I met a girl who took this class and she said she loved it. So we'll see what happens. It should be interesting, either way.
I was planning on taking Calculus 1, but that's a 4-hour class, there were no open spaces left, and being put on the wait-list would screw up the rest of my schedule. I'm not sure if I should sign up for the wait-list anyway, or just wait until next semester to take it. I really hate calculus, and this is the hardest level a freshman can take. I just want to get it out of the way - if I take it I'll be qualified to take some Computer Science classes that look interesting.
Overall, I guess I'm more optimistic about college now. At least I have a better idea of what it will be like.
That's all for now. I'm exhausted.
Quote of Da Moment:
"I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate."
--Spaceballs
My flight from El Salvador to Atlanta was fine. For some strange reason, it seems like I always end up going on the same flight or ride as teachers as my school. Two years ago, I saw Mr. MacClure. I can't remember who I saw last year, but I probably saw someone. A few weeks ago, Mr. Murgatroyd was on the same bus ride back from Guatemala with me. And this time, it turned out Mr. Morgan was going to be on my flight to Atlanta.
That was a pretty neat coincidence. He was able to tell me what I made on my IB exams - I got 38 points! Woohoo! For those of you who don't know, the minimum amount of points required to graduate is 26, I think. Something like that. The maximum amount possible is 44 or 45. So yeah, I did good. On a scale of 1-7, I made a 7 in Spanish (not a big surprise, since I took it at the easiest level) and English at Higher Level. I made a 6 in Computers Higher Level and History Higher Level. I did the worst in Math and Biology - 5. Oh well. I also made an A on my Extended Essay, which is really good. What's weird is that the IB gave me a C in TOK. I don't know anyone who made a B or an A, even though we were awarded A's in class. Strange. I'm going to find out what it takes to appeal that decision.
Anyways, Mr. Morgan and I were able to help each other get through customs. Then he was off to a hotel to spend the night, before flying to San Francisco the next day. He was going to spend a week with a friend he hadn't seen in around 50 years. I think that's incredible - this guy randomly found his picture on the school website, asked if it was the Glynn Morgan he knew from college, and it was. What a crazy coincidence.
Well, my ticket said I had to be at gate B10 for my flight to Greensboro. But I noticed on one of the monitors that it said my flight had been changed to gate E15. Since I was already in E terminal, I decided to check it out. I went to E15, and no one was around. Just a sign that said that was the place to be for a flight to Florida. So I assumed the flight hadn't been changed, and was at B10. So I went all the way to B terminal. There was a big signing saying that this was the flight to Florida, and the flight to Greensboro was moved to E15. The monitors said the same thing, so I walked all the way back to the E terminal. The monitors and signs still said that this was the gate for the flight to Florida. After going up to the Delta desk twice, I was finally informed that yeah, I needed to be at E15. Someone just hadn't gotten around to changing the sign yet.
By this point I'm exhausted. Nobody should have to walk around an airport that much just to find their gate. So I sit down by my gate. The flight is supposed to leave in around 40 minutes, and there's still no one at the desk. Finally, this lady shows up. She tells me that there's a problem since Hurricane Cindy is close by, and my flight will be delayed. Great. I sit there for a while longer. Then I decide to go get something to eat.
I go to Burger King, and order a burger. Turns out the only thing they have left is a chicken sandwich. Fine. I order that, and then proceed to wait. The cashier is completely clueless as to what she's doing. The girls in the back are spending most of their time standing around and talking. When they actually do work, they work at a very slow pace. There's only one guy - thank you very much for doing your job, whoever you are - who actually seems to be putting forth some effort. Twenty minutes and a few very frustrated customers later, I have my food.
I go back to the gate - by this time, my flight is around half an hour late leaving. After ten more minutes, the airport opens back up, and we finally get to board. Yay. So I get on the plane. Sit down. Wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
The whole airport had been closed down, so there were backed up flights everwhere. Tons of planes needed to land and take off. I was sitting in the plane for at least an hour, slowly inching closer and closer to the runway, before finally taking off. Talk about a boring way to spend an hour of your life. All in all, I was around 2 hours late arriving. From what I've heard, the Atlanta Airport isn't a very good airport even when there isn't a hurricane. I hope I don't have to fly Delta again any time soon!
Anyways...I'm here. I didn't do much for a few days. Just chill out and go shopping for a few things I'd need in college. I saw Spaceballs. It had been a while since I'd seen it, but I was in the mood for a Star Wars spoof. Overall, it's a pretty funny movie. Some of the jokes are really hilarious; others are just really bad and lame. But oh well. The good outweighs the bad. Besides, it's a spoof classic - it was even referenced during a presentation at Orientation.
Speaking of which, yeah, I just got back from Orientation. I now know a lot more about what it's going to be like at NCSU in August. The campus is freakin' huge! Then again, with thirty thousand students, it'd have to be. I only know my way around a few areas on campus; I'm still lost about the rest.
Overall, Orientation was so-so. Some of the presentations were interesting, and others were really boring. I had to walk a lot. The food wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but that may be just because the parents were there too. There were times when I was really bored and wanted to leave, but I did have some interesting experiences.
For one, it's a really interesting student environment. There isn't as much diversity as I'd like - supposedly, 90% of the students are from North Carolina - and I'm not used to being around so many white people. It feels weird to be a majority again.
As many guys pointed out, there are a ton of girls in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. I think they outnumber us guys by around 4 to 1. Lots of guys were like, "The girls are so hot here! This is great! *drool*", but I just miss Souwa. Blegh.
I was staying in a suite with some others guys. I was lucky, and most of the guys in my dorm were Christians, or at least claimed to be. They were pretty cool, and we hung out some at night. Before I get into the details, I might as well mention this:
During one of the presentations for parents, a staff member told them: "Yes, there are laws prohibiting students that are under 21 from drinking, and drugs are not allowed. However, don't assume that the majority of people here will pay any attention to those laws. I can pretty much guarantee that your child will be invited to go to a party and get drunk and smoke pot during the first week...if not the first day."
Well, as it turns out, people decided not to wait until the first day to start partying. There was evidently a huge party happening on the floor beneath mine. A few of the guys in my suite and I went down to see what was up. As soon as we entered the hall we were met by some people I got the impression my roommates had met earlier in the day. I don't know if when they met before these guys were sober, but they certainly weren't now. I think they were high, too. Wow. I haven't even started college yet, and I already have the opportunity to drink and do drugs. What a reassuring discovery.
My suite was also the victim of vandalism. A few of us went to the student lounge a few doors down to play some foosball at 1:00 AM. When we came back around 20 minutes later, the door of our suite was standing wide open. Someone had turned on a faucet in our bathroom and just left it running, and the bathroom floor was completely flooded. Some of the water seeped into my room. At first I thought it was a just a little bit, so I tried to wipe it up with my towel. Once my towel was completely soaked, I realized how much water there was. It was a lot. There was nothing to do except leave it there and hope it evaporated before too long. We were all really annoyed about it.
Another interesting thing happened, too. We were out on the balcony looking out at the campus, and we noticed a guy and a girl in the hall on the floor beneath ours. It was obvious they were flirting with each other, getting ready to make out. I didn't see the girl's face, but one of my roommates knew her and said she had a boyfriend. I'm not surprised - there was this atmosphere around her that practically screamed SLUTTY TEENAGE FEMALE. As for the guy, he probably had AVERAGE TEENAGE MALE written somewhere on his forehead. We watched them for a few minutes, and sure enough, he went in for a kiss and they started making out. At this point, my roommates started waving their arms trying to get his attention - they gave him the thumbs up sign, and acted really enthusiastic about his decision to make out with this girl in front of us all. He looked up, saw us, laughed, and we ducked down before the girl could see us. Then they disappeared, probably to go continue their activity elsewhere. It was really funny. My roommates were crazy, but as long as they weren't stoned or drunk that was fine with me.
Speaking of making out, there was a really great presentation on "Community Issues", one section of which dealt with sex. It encouraged us all to have a safe, healthy sex life while we're at NCSU. It reminded us to always use condoms and showed some pictures of STDs - that's enough to almost make me want to never have sex in my life. I'm going to have nightmares about public hair lice and genital/oral herpes. Lucky for us, the Student Health Center will give us each up to three free condoms per day! Oh well, I guess I should have expected as much. This is a very large state university; it would be crazy for them to advise something like, I don't know, abstinence. I mean, it's not like that would help prevent STDs, right?
Here's some scary statistics: if I remember correctly, they said that probably 1 out of 4 girls will be sexually assaulted. With guys, it's 1 out of 10. Isn't that just a little high? Are hillbilly hormones really that strong? They said that if you're ever sexually assaulted, it'll probably be by someone you know. Which means that logically, there is a way to get through all four years of college without ever risking being raped: don't get to know anyone. Go to your classes and your dorm, nowhere else. Don't talk to anyone. Then you'll be safe.
That is, until your roommate murders you in your sleep because you don't respond to him at all. It's rape or death. Take your pick.
But yeah, that's college. I guess I'm a little more optimistic about it now than I was before. They lost my housing application, so I turned in another one, and got placed in Avent-Ferry - it's this dorm that's kinda off campus and really far away from all my classes, but hey, it's better than nothing. There's also a chance that I'll get moved to Becton before school starts, which would be awesome, since that dorm is near all my classes and is being completely renovated. Also, I found out why I wasn't invited to be in the Honors program or to receive any merit-based scholarships. Their computer system for sorting students has a major flaw, in that automatically sorts students with SAT scores over 1300 and GPAs of over 3.5 into those groups. Well, I met the SAT requirement, but for some reason since I studied at an international high school my GPA was left blank. That's why I didn't get any of the benefits I should have gotten - I fell through the cracks of the system. They're going to try and see if they can get me at least a little scholarship money, so that's cool. It seems like all my administration problems are finally starting to be worked out, little by little.
Also: registering for classes is a pain. I had to wait in line for over and hour, and then when I finally did sit down to register for classes, I realized that they can't expect a freshman to register in half an hour for less. It's crazy. Most of the courses I wanted to take were already filled, and I didn't want to be put on a wait-list unless it was absolutely necessary. Luckily, I was able to work out a few of my problems after I got home. Here are the classes I'm currently signed up for:
ENG 252 - Major American Writers: Woohoo, my first English literature class!
FLS 308 - Spanish Conversation and Reading: I automatically placed into this upper level Spanish class since I'm pretty much fluent already. I'd start Chinese, but if I take this class I'll get 9 hours credit. I can't pass that up.
PE 240 - Social Dance: Yes, that's right, I'm taking a dance class. I wanted to go ahead and get my PE requirement out of the way, since the classes don't take up very much time. There were tons of options to choose from, but in the end I figured I might as well go with this. I won't be the only guy in there, so that's good. Besides, this class will probably be better in the long run than say, Bowling.
PHI 221 - Contemporary Moral Issues: I have to take at least one Philosophy course in order to graduate, so I thought I might as well go ahead and take this. Besides, I might be interested in taking other Philosophy courses in the future, so this will give me a good introduction to that field of study. I'll get to study and analyze a lot of world issues like euthnasia, suicide, abortion, etc. Should be interesting.
PS 236 - Issues in Global Politics: A political science course. This will count as one of four Social Science credits I'm required to acquire before I graduate. I wasn't planning on taking any Political Science classes, but this one sounded okay. It'll be on things like wars, women's rights, terrorism, etc.
SOC 204 - Sociology of Family: I want to take other courses in Sociology in the future, so this is a good introduction, as well as counting for another social science credit. This class will deal with familiar matters, such as what makes up a family, mate selection, marriage, divorce, etc. I don't know why, but for some reason that sounds really interesting to me. My mom says it'll probably be taught from an extremely liberal viewpoint and promote homosexuality. If that's the case, I probably won't like it. But I met a girl who took this class and she said she loved it. So we'll see what happens. It should be interesting, either way.
I was planning on taking Calculus 1, but that's a 4-hour class, there were no open spaces left, and being put on the wait-list would screw up the rest of my schedule. I'm not sure if I should sign up for the wait-list anyway, or just wait until next semester to take it. I really hate calculus, and this is the hardest level a freshman can take. I just want to get it out of the way - if I take it I'll be qualified to take some Computer Science classes that look interesting.
Overall, I guess I'm more optimistic about college now. At least I have a better idea of what it will be like.
That's all for now. I'm exhausted.
Quote of Da Moment:
"I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate."
--Spaceballs
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 7/12/2005 10:28:00 PM 
