first day of school! first day of school!

Today was my first day of class, and quite honestly I was excited.  I wasn’t excited to be starting work, but I have been out of class for 8 weeks.  Don’t get me wrong, I looooove my vacation time, but it is nice to be getting into a routine again. 

So the class I had today was Zoology 3. It’s a double credit course (8 credits) so I was expecting it to be pretty difficult. We did the typical gloss over the syllabus for the beginning of class and then did an actual lecture for about 20 minutes.  Kids showed up up to 20 minutes after the class had already started (lectures here are only 45 minutes). Based on the lecture the class should be pretty easy.  Obviously I have only been to one class, so how could I even know right? But I’m pretty sure this class should be manageable, and I can’t see it being harder than anything I’ve already taken. I felt like I was in high school again. Well in the last 5 minutes the professor explained that we are going to be focusing on species native to Africa, so he put up a map of the continent on an overhead projector (so old school).  They were all numbered, so he would ask a question like, “what country is number 4?” or “what is the biggest country in Africa?”  Silence.  No one answered, because no one knew.  This was true for every question he asked.  One person was able to identify one country, because he came from there.  I was sitting in the front row with my friend Sarah from BC and our new friend Boone from Georgia and we just looked at each other. Now I am no expert at geography, but if you put up a map of the US and pointed to a state, I would be able to name it (thank you sporcle).  I also am aware that the US is one country and Africa is a whole continent, but still. You would think that one would have some knowledge of the surrounding countries.  I was surprised, as were Boone and Sarah. 

That was my only class today, ya my Mondays are easy. Tomorrow I have all three of my classes so after I have been to each once I will be able to go and get my textbooks.  I looked today for my zoo book but because it’s from 2002 I figured it wouldn’t be in stock. I was right. I then did some major damage at Clicks and Checkers, the local drugstore and supermarket.  The whole money thing keeps throwing me off, though.  I keep thinking I am spending loads of money, but I'm not. I had two bulging bags coming home today and I spent about 500 rand.  That's about $70.  Thanks to what I bought today I am becoming more and more of a real person here in South Africa. I have a tea kettle in my room now so that I can make tea (duh) and also drink the water from the tap now that I can boil it. The only thing that I am missing is decoration. And sharpies…(hint hint mom). So if anyone wants to send me a postcard or mail please do! I would greatly appreciate it. My address is…

Claire Kreeft

Olive Schreiner House

St Mary Hall

Rhodes University

Private Bag 1032

Grahamstown

South Africa

6140

Do it you won’t.

p.s. How sad is this: we have fieldtrips in my zoology class. That’s not sad, that’s actually cool. The first is over a weekend. The same weekend I happen to be turning 21.  Now that’s sad. Depressfest ’11.