First half of the semester over, I guess.
So here are my two favorite quotes from the books I've read, wooo:
"We all alike are slaves to our respective dimensional prejudices."
- from Edwin Abbot Abbot's "Flatland"


"Some of the greatest atrocities of humankind have been committed in the name of love."
- from my psychology book explaning one of Freud's defense mechanisms


This school is very different from Wake. The classes actually have a pretty crap set-up. For example, my english class meets three times a week, each
meeting lasting for an hour. Two of those three hours are spent in straight
lecture. The teacher prepares a powerpoint, which he then proceeds to read
directly from. This process is mind-rotting.
And it gets worse!
This powerpoint is then put online so you can download it yourself (generally available for download before the actual lecture!). What this means is that if one were so inclined (Tyler Durden), I could download the lecture, read it over, and then present the class myself. If I memorize all of the info and come up with some creative input, I could do a better job than the actual teacher. Heyo.
Anyway, the third hour is spent in a tutorial. UoA has tutorials because the regular classes are all too big for you to just raise your hand and ask a question. When I say the classes are lecture, I mean pretty much straight lecture. Teacher talks. You sit and listen...and sometimes drool a little. I've heard about 4 questions asked total out of all of my classes. But the tutorial takes care of that! It's limited to 20 people and you all come together and talk about what you've been doing in class, always one week behind what's actually going on.
In theory, this sounds cool. You get to read books, then you get a full hour to sit and talk about the material. Grand! The problem is, either the TA or the teacher him/herself has come up with questions of exercises for you to address in your tutorial. This means that you are discouraged from talking in lecture, and then are only allowed to talk about predetermined topics in your tutorials.
What the fuck?

I mean if you really wanted to you could just raise your hand and start goin' off with whatever you have to say, but I'm lazy. And braindead by how stupid the lecture environment is. And some of them are 2 hours long. I'd rather receive a gravy enema then sit through one of those without my laptop to take my mind away from the monotony of watching somebody read off a bunch of slides that I'm then just going to read off of myself when I have to study for the test.

But I don't want to give the impression that I don't like it here. All you have to do is download the lecture slides, go to the mandatory tutorials, take the tests, turn in the papers, and the rest of the time is yours all yours. This is definitely better than still taking role. Seriously, Wake Forest? The only person that loses out when you skip a class is yourself. We're 18-22 years old. We're already fucking each other. Let us fuck ourselves, too.
The fact that I can't miss more than two or three classes ever is pretty ridiculous at this stage in my life, wouldn't you say? Guess you're just getting us ready for that monotony of having a daily job to get to! Ya-fucking-hoo. Anyway, that'll all probably suck when I get to it, if I decide to do anything like that. I like volunteering with kids, maybe eventually I'll get paid to work with kids? That'd be cool. And until I get to that shit stage in life, I'm going to stop taking this shit so seriously and enjoy myself more. Do I care that much that I almost have a 3.8? Will it change my whole life getting that extra bit of honors announced when I graduate? Probably not. My diploma will hang on a wall and people will walk by and say "Ah, Wake Forest...where's that?"
(So far up its own ass you can barely see it.)

"Nothing's gonna change my world."

Writing all this to avoid editing my first Auckland essay. It's easily the biggest turd I've ever written. It's 20% of my final grade. If I get 10%, I will excrete a sizable chunk of masonry. It actually kind of scares me how little this troubles me. I'm such a little over-acheiver usually. This country's chilled me out a lot. Opened my eyes. I saw through the bullshit, as Mitch once said.

Oh, and so ends part 1 of my semester abroad experience. Well, academically. I leave tomorrow for 2 weeks of exploring the South Island. In a spaceship. With 3 girls. I'm going to go insane.