Orientation

Another completely odd day.

This bit is for Susan - my favourite navigator.........
Started off EARLY because I thought I should try driving to Uni to see how easy/far it is and if its better/worse than the bus. To give you an idea of the journey, its like driving from Hertford to south London - the roads are a little better but there are no motor(free)ways to cheat with and hundreds of traffic lights.

Anyway, I had my route carefully written out - post-it notes in the road atlas, full of confidence cruising along in the truck at 7am chilling out to the radio....

.....then the traffic report came on saying DON'T GO NEAR MARINE DRIVE! Poo. Marine Drive was the biggest section of my route! So to cut a very un-interesting story short, I was saved by the grid-like road layout and re-routed.

....And minor miracle, I arrived at Uni after 45mins without a single mistake. Result!

So now, I'm officially a student! LOL!!
















The orientation was actually quite good. It was just for international students (about 35-40 of us) and they certainly were that. Of the countries I remember.....England (haha), USA, Finland, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Fiji, China, Vietnam and Iran. Although a glance round the room told you Far East students made up more than 90%.

We all introduced the person next to us, I introduced Helena from Vietnam who is 18 (yeah I know - half my age) like cats and swimming and is in her second year and staying in Vancouver with her Auntie. I do admire all these students who have traveled so far from home and are now talking to a room full of people in a foreign language, impressive.

We got shown a video, introduced to members of the "Faculty" (whatever that is) and got loads of info about what to do and where to go - oh and a tour but the highlight of the day was when they fed us pizza! Cool.

I made a few friends.... Helena (above), Kiyoka from Japan - already done a year Uni in Ontario, a year in Mexico and now on the third year here - all by the age of 19 - I'm feeling a bit left behind. Noo is a English Language student from Thailand, Aachal is in 3rd year of Criminology and Kingkamm (no jokes please) is a 3rd year psychology student. And yes, they are all female - I'd say it was 85% female. Its terrible!

So once the day was over, I registered for my student ID and went to buy my text books......

Over 600 dollars lighter I left weighed down with this little lot. Expensive business this education!

Oh, and for Susan's benefit, the journey home was a bit of a mess after I headed South instead of North but soon realized and found my way back ok-ish via a bit of shopping downtown.

Gotta go look at some appartments......