Feeling Like This Term Might Be The Death Of Me.

This week so far (its Thursday now) has been on the quiet side, minus last night which was Becca’s 20th Birthday Celebrations! We went to town and danced our ass’s off the entire night and Becca had a wonderful birthday! She had a list of tasks around her neck that she had to complete during the night and she checked all of them off her list. The cab ride there was probably the funniest thing I had ever witnessed. The night was definitely epic to say the least! Since the week has been so low key, I will take this time to vent about classes. I am currently taking Botany and Zoology, both 100 level classes. So I am with all first years. My classes are at least 100 people in huge lecture halls. It isn’t that the material we are learning is hard or anything, but the questions that I have had to answer on my quiz’s have been ridiculously tough. I JUST got my botany book because it wasn’t in the bookstore, and it isn’t like I can buy it off Amazon because it would never get here. So I fell behind early with Botany right from the start and also there was apparently a Botany class offered that preceded the class I am in now, so I lecturer refers to last term and I have no idea what he is talking about. I’ll stick with my Botany class for now because I see myself having the hardest time in there. My lab is on Wednesdays at 230 and it consists of like 120 people. We are split up into two lab rooms and the teacher isn’t even there. Instead they have demi’s which are students, I think, that are suppose to help us if we have any questions. Every single question I have asked, they haven’t had the answer to and they basically brush me off and say I don’t know, I’m sorry. Not to mention the labs are formatted completely different than I have ever seen before. For labs at home, our drawings we turn in don’t have to be technical and our teachers have never stressed labeling or a strict format. Here, I got my prac back and I did horrible because I didn’t know some minor things that these students have probably been doing since high school. It seems that our education in the States in different and almost like we are behind. First years here are taking what I have to take in my junior year at home. Back at LEC, the professors hold our hand through everything we do and answer any questions we have, but here since the classes are so big the students are use to no help. I think this has been the biggest shock within my educational experience here. Also, yesterday my Botany lecturer mentions to us at 1045am that day that prac is cancelled, but we have to attend the science departments graduation at 230 that afternoon, which is when our prac usually is. Now, I would have gone had I not: 1. just come from volunteering and was wearing dirty sport clothes which would not be acceptable to wear to a formal graduation and I also had no time to go home and change since I don’t live directly on campus (a little more notice than a few hours would have been more acceptable). 2. Known where the hell the graduation was! I obviously didn’t go because I knew if I actually did find the place, they wouldn’t have even let me in looking the way I did. Anyways, he took down the names of the people who went in class today and told the rest of us that going to the event was part of our prac mark. I don’t see this fair at all seeing as a graduation had NOTHING to do with learning about botany. I didn’t pay money for this class to go and watch people graduate.... Moving onto zoology, I like the content of this class, but a few things are very frustrating. Like the fact that our lecture period is for about an hour and 20 minutes, but she gets through the material in about 20 minutes and it is impossible to copy down the notes she has on the projector because of how fast she goes. Also, the book isn’t available in the bookstore yet, and she won’t put the slides from lecture online until a few days before the test, which obviously doesn’t give us enough time to prepare. Lastly, even though both lecturers speak english, they still have an accent and sometimes with the way they talk so fast it is hard to distinguish some words making it hard for me to understand what exactly they are talking about. I am feeling very stressed about my classes and this moment and should probably be studying for my test in a week instead of writing this... I’m just hoping that I pass because otherwise it was pointless for me to come here. For once in my life, I am worried about failing a class. School usually comes so easy to me because I am very organized and such a hard worker, but I feel as if I am giving a 100% right now and it isn’t good enough, not to mention nothing seems to be going my way. Hopefully things start looking up soon. I think I have finally gotten over my homesickness. We, as of today, have been here for exactly 10 weeks and only have about 2 and a half months left. Only 5 more weeks of classes and then exams in June. There are a lot of exciting trips planned over the next few weeks including Frontier this weekend and Capetown, Hogsback, Port St. Alfred the following weekend and Victoria Falls in May! I’m super excited to be travelign so much after being stuck in PE for the past few weekends. For now that’s all I have! Cheers!