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trinityvixenThere's just something about me, I think. Carrie goes abroad and gets credit for like every class she took in New Zealand. I ask for one class to count--just one--and Columbia decides the day after I turn in my petition not to give me anything for it. This isn't for my major, this isn't a class I need or else I won't have enough credits to graduate. Just one stupid distribution requirement-type deal, a 'major cultures' class. I studied Aboriginal Affairs in Australia, learning most of the history on the side myself because our class didn't cover all of it. Aboriginals. The longest-living still extant society on the planet. Columbia's excuse? My class was covering topics that were 'too modern.'
This is what they tell me, leaving me scrambling to find a class to replace the bogus major cultures class I'd signed up for here just to cover my ass until they approved my course. In the process of doing this, I found a List A course for Middle Eastern Cultures dealing with Islam today. Not the history of the religion, its followers, or its empires, just Islam and the west today. When I demanded I be given a better explanation, she said they might have considered giving me credit as a list B course, but that it was too modern to count for List A and, seeing as I didn't have a List A for the non-existant Australasian Major Cultures section, a List B wouldn't do me any good anyway. Explain to me how studying 200 years worth of Western and Australian Indigenous interaction is somehow too modern while a course on what is only the past maybe 50 years on Islam vs the West is not.
So, I'm caving and taking an East Asian Civ course, an intro level studying China. It's actually already sounding quite interesting, and this is despite the teacher's thick accent. He was pleasant, amusing, and very very kind about making sure I could get guest access to courseworks so I could check to see for a recitation time. It didn't work, but he tried. And he was willing to let people in via add/drop forms because the web was listing his course as technically full. Thank God for this because I went to my first screening for Cinema and Society in Asia and Africa, and ggggggaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh....I was late, but I still waited for 10-15 minutes before they even started the damn thing and then it was two and a half hours---at the end of which, they told us in not so pleasant a way that we better have the reading assigned for this film done by the recitation. It wasn't even nice, it was an order, "have this done or you're dirt in our eyes." That sunk this class. Pros were it had only two papers, one on a filmmaker, one on a film, no sweat. But five plus hours a week, and veiled threats to our academic integrity if we weren't always prepared? Forget it. I'll take China Civ with three hours a week including recitation and risk having a shitty tute or a few more tests/papers.
This is all Columbia's fault. I never ask for anything of them, and still, they squash me. On the up side, Dinosaurs and the History of Life, which I was planning to take back twelve hours ago when I was blissfully ignorant of just how much I fucking hate this school, didn't turn out to be all that and a bag of chips. It was both interesting and slow. The slow part involved an overly exaggerated attempt by the professor to try to get people to say why science is different from other academic subjects. He got into more of the geological methods of dating the earth, fossils, etc, which picked up because he gave all sorts of intimate and interesting details about the scientists responsible. It's like kooky history, not blah-blah Brinkley history (Scarsdale people feel my pain n that one). Still, not worth a major research paper, even if that's all you had to do. It was like write a primary source-only paper for the midterm and if you didn't like the grade you got, rewrite it for the final, otherwise you were done. That's incredibly sweet if you aced the paper in one, but, eh, people in there were clearly leaning towards the geology side and less the archaeology or even zoology. Shame about the class, but I'll live.
In better news, I am probably in my class about Horror films as I am a senior and I have the first place-reserving paper ready. I tell you, the Barnardians flipped the fuck out when Prof. McKenna basically told them that he wasn't sticking to the sign-up sheets that they had pre-registered on or whatever. And brav-fucking-o to him. Excuse me, Barnard chicks, but your system sucks. I have to go over and put my name on a piece of paper outside a professor's door at a time not revealed to the general Columbia population some time the semester before I want to take a class? Okay, we let the writing department get away with that shit, but seriously, they send out e-mails to the whole school most of the time. And I was in Australia! He passed another sheet around and said priority went still to Barnard senior English or Film majors, then Columbia senior film majors, then by seniority (major independent) from thereon down. He wants about 55 students, including auditors, and about 45 or so raised their hands as just seniors, so I'm sure I'm in. The catch was you had to write the first paper--easy enough, about things that scare you and why you want to take the course, but it's kind of annoying if you don't know that you'll get in (if you were a sophmore or even junior). I heard a lot of gripes about it in the hall, but seriously, seniors don't get another shot, so shut your traps, yo.
Then there's Invertebrate Zoology. I got kudos for being a scuba diver when he asked who was certified. It was just me and one other girl. He looked like his jaw would fall off when I said I'd only been diving in Australia and Fiji. 'Course, the other girl had been to those and a shitload more (ENVY ENVY ENVY HATE HATE HATE rolling off me), which impressed him into yelling at everyone else to take up diving but us. w00t! He did say we'd have to go back now and dive knowing more about what we'd see, and I was nice and didn't say anything about how I already knew quite a lot, thanks to my Bio of Australian Flora and Fauna class because that would just have been bragging and I think I might be expelled if I tried to claim, on a Columbia campus, that I learned anything abroad, seeing as how well my slaving over Indigenous turned out.
Oh, and Tactics of Nonfiction looks to be relatively inoffensive as it requires a lot of reading but only four pieces. w00t. That's my last semester at Columbia.
I've settled into my room in River. By settled, I mean the moving bins are gone, my clothes are in the right drawers, and I have crap up on the walls. There's still all the rest of my stuff scattered all over the floor, which I will get around to cleaning. It's just that every time I try, I get distracted by the draft coming in from the window. I've tried everything, and I keep going back for more. I tried locking the window shut, taping over the bottom, and now I've left some towels in it to close on so that if it's draft dodger is broken, the towels will stuff it up. This is only a little bit effective. My latest method is the towels place tape to hold them to the glass, hopefully blowing air up and away from me while I sleep, in addition to covering the whole thing with my other coat, and blocking the window up with some boxes. I pulled the bed out a bit from the wall, too, so hopefully any heat the heater manages to give will counter incoming wind from the window. This is all ridiculous. This building was renovated in 2001! It should be a model of efficiency and maintenance.
At this point, I'm not transferring, but I'm tempted to get URH in here or something. Lisa said Jess (who also lives on the floor) called them to fix her heating and they told her they couldn't 'cause the bed was in the way. I'll move the bed if they can crank that sucker up. Or, like Ann, maybe they'll give me a heater. I'm soooo used to Columbia housing being too hot (hello? Wallach 2C1 never had that window closed no matter the conditions), and my house being cold. This past weekend I was home and was soooooooo happy to be in my parent's room where the heat's mad with its own power. Stupid, stupid Columbia.
Much thanks go to Ann who was kind enough to write an e-mail in an attempt to calm me after I left up a particularly vitriolic and depressed away on AIM. What a way to wake up this morning. Being told 'fuck off kid, you don't get shit for study abroad,' then going to my Dinosaurs class to see if it was worth taking six classes for then going to China Civ to see if that could replace Cinema+Society then going to my only scheduled class that day, Cell Physiology of Disease. That's class from 1-5:30, followed by a 'welcome back' session for Study Abroad (after this morning? Oh yeah, I was feeling reeeeeally generous). Followed by movie until 8:40. It was sweet to come back and get her email, just wonderful, made me feel bad for even complaining so fiercely.
Oh, and before I forget: A bit belated, but there was a trip to Batcave this weekend, my second. I can't say as it was as good as the first time, mostly because of the music, but I won't say it was worse either, you know? I mean, I love this club. I love people dressed up in goth outfits, I loved the shine and shimmer of patent leather and metal chains, brad, studs, piercings, and handcuffs. I felt good, like I had a real outfit instead of one cobbled together from an old shirt and a borrowed skirt to match my boots. This time, I had the red pleather pants, the white pleather top, and, well, the boots, shit yeah. I realized what my outfit needed to be complete were suspenders...there are perfect metal suspender rings on my pants, too. A pair of black suspenders would have matched perfectly with my black/white checkerboard on red background wristband, too. Next time, next time.
Michelle wore the black pleather dress she stunned me with when we were shopping in Hot Topic. Some one else had my top, which was miffy, but eh, didn't see her more than just the once. Guess she went downstairs. (she also had my skirt which I wasn't wearing at the time, but grrrr) Lisa looked grand in her cabbie cap and neon fishnets worn as arm bands, Julian had these awesome multicolored shoes, Carrie had Julian's corset top and neat-o knee-high boots, Ronnie had great hair and such a cute shirt, and and and...well, face it people, you all looked fantastic! Met up with Hattie and her friends there which r0xx0rs. What really r0xx0rs is that I managed to stay alert and not tired enough to be there till it closed!
Oh and Carrie made an idiot of herself staring at the Elf-guy dancing. He was admittedly very good and very cute, but sheesh. Cleaning up drool is not in the job description there. Plus he never changed how he danced, so it was neat, but well, very repetitive and eventually get-over-worthy. Not for Carrie. She had that stupid ass grin on the whole time.
Oh final scores? Anyone Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? I got one, I think Lisa got at least one, Carrie two? Michelle, one? Hattie? (score of who's been hit on) Jeff, one?
This is what they tell me, leaving me scrambling to find a class to replace the bogus major cultures class I'd signed up for here just to cover my ass until they approved my course. In the process of doing this, I found a List A course for Middle Eastern Cultures dealing with Islam today. Not the history of the religion, its followers, or its empires, just Islam and the west today. When I demanded I be given a better explanation, she said they might have considered giving me credit as a list B course, but that it was too modern to count for List A and, seeing as I didn't have a List A for the non-existant Australasian Major Cultures section, a List B wouldn't do me any good anyway. Explain to me how studying 200 years worth of Western and Australian Indigenous interaction is somehow too modern while a course on what is only the past maybe 50 years on Islam vs the West is not.
So, I'm caving and taking an East Asian Civ course, an intro level studying China. It's actually already sounding quite interesting, and this is despite the teacher's thick accent. He was pleasant, amusing, and very very kind about making sure I could get guest access to courseworks so I could check to see for a recitation time. It didn't work, but he tried. And he was willing to let people in via add/drop forms because the web was listing his course as technically full. Thank God for this because I went to my first screening for Cinema and Society in Asia and Africa, and ggggggaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh....I was late, but I still waited for 10-15 minutes before they even started the damn thing and then it was two and a half hours---at the end of which, they told us in not so pleasant a way that we better have the reading assigned for this film done by the recitation. It wasn't even nice, it was an order, "have this done or you're dirt in our eyes." That sunk this class. Pros were it had only two papers, one on a filmmaker, one on a film, no sweat. But five plus hours a week, and veiled threats to our academic integrity if we weren't always prepared? Forget it. I'll take China Civ with three hours a week including recitation and risk having a shitty tute or a few more tests/papers.
This is all Columbia's fault. I never ask for anything of them, and still, they squash me. On the up side, Dinosaurs and the History of Life, which I was planning to take back twelve hours ago when I was blissfully ignorant of just how much I fucking hate this school, didn't turn out to be all that and a bag of chips. It was both interesting and slow. The slow part involved an overly exaggerated attempt by the professor to try to get people to say why science is different from other academic subjects. He got into more of the geological methods of dating the earth, fossils, etc, which picked up because he gave all sorts of intimate and interesting details about the scientists responsible. It's like kooky history, not blah-blah Brinkley history (Scarsdale people feel my pain n that one). Still, not worth a major research paper, even if that's all you had to do. It was like write a primary source-only paper for the midterm and if you didn't like the grade you got, rewrite it for the final, otherwise you were done. That's incredibly sweet if you aced the paper in one, but, eh, people in there were clearly leaning towards the geology side and less the archaeology or even zoology. Shame about the class, but I'll live.
In better news, I am probably in my class about Horror films as I am a senior and I have the first place-reserving paper ready. I tell you, the Barnardians flipped the fuck out when Prof. McKenna basically told them that he wasn't sticking to the sign-up sheets that they had pre-registered on or whatever. And brav-fucking-o to him. Excuse me, Barnard chicks, but your system sucks. I have to go over and put my name on a piece of paper outside a professor's door at a time not revealed to the general Columbia population some time the semester before I want to take a class? Okay, we let the writing department get away with that shit, but seriously, they send out e-mails to the whole school most of the time. And I was in Australia! He passed another sheet around and said priority went still to Barnard senior English or Film majors, then Columbia senior film majors, then by seniority (major independent) from thereon down. He wants about 55 students, including auditors, and about 45 or so raised their hands as just seniors, so I'm sure I'm in. The catch was you had to write the first paper--easy enough, about things that scare you and why you want to take the course, but it's kind of annoying if you don't know that you'll get in (if you were a sophmore or even junior). I heard a lot of gripes about it in the hall, but seriously, seniors don't get another shot, so shut your traps, yo.
Then there's Invertebrate Zoology. I got kudos for being a scuba diver when he asked who was certified. It was just me and one other girl. He looked like his jaw would fall off when I said I'd only been diving in Australia and Fiji. 'Course, the other girl had been to those and a shitload more (ENVY ENVY ENVY HATE HATE HATE rolling off me), which impressed him into yelling at everyone else to take up diving but us. w00t! He did say we'd have to go back now and dive knowing more about what we'd see, and I was nice and didn't say anything about how I already knew quite a lot, thanks to my Bio of Australian Flora and Fauna class because that would just have been bragging and I think I might be expelled if I tried to claim, on a Columbia campus, that I learned anything abroad, seeing as how well my slaving over Indigenous turned out.
Oh, and Tactics of Nonfiction looks to be relatively inoffensive as it requires a lot of reading but only four pieces. w00t. That's my last semester at Columbia.
I've settled into my room in River. By settled, I mean the moving bins are gone, my clothes are in the right drawers, and I have crap up on the walls. There's still all the rest of my stuff scattered all over the floor, which I will get around to cleaning. It's just that every time I try, I get distracted by the draft coming in from the window. I've tried everything, and I keep going back for more. I tried locking the window shut, taping over the bottom, and now I've left some towels in it to close on so that if it's draft dodger is broken, the towels will stuff it up. This is only a little bit effective. My latest method is the towels place tape to hold them to the glass, hopefully blowing air up and away from me while I sleep, in addition to covering the whole thing with my other coat, and blocking the window up with some boxes. I pulled the bed out a bit from the wall, too, so hopefully any heat the heater manages to give will counter incoming wind from the window. This is all ridiculous. This building was renovated in 2001! It should be a model of efficiency and maintenance.
At this point, I'm not transferring, but I'm tempted to get URH in here or something. Lisa said Jess (who also lives on the floor) called them to fix her heating and they told her they couldn't 'cause the bed was in the way. I'll move the bed if they can crank that sucker up. Or, like Ann, maybe they'll give me a heater. I'm soooo used to Columbia housing being too hot (hello? Wallach 2C1 never had that window closed no matter the conditions), and my house being cold. This past weekend I was home and was soooooooo happy to be in my parent's room where the heat's mad with its own power. Stupid, stupid Columbia.
Much thanks go to Ann who was kind enough to write an e-mail in an attempt to calm me after I left up a particularly vitriolic and depressed away on AIM. What a way to wake up this morning. Being told 'fuck off kid, you don't get shit for study abroad,' then going to my Dinosaurs class to see if it was worth taking six classes for then going to China Civ to see if that could replace Cinema+Society then going to my only scheduled class that day, Cell Physiology of Disease. That's class from 1-5:30, followed by a 'welcome back' session for Study Abroad (after this morning? Oh yeah, I was feeling reeeeeally generous). Followed by movie until 8:40. It was sweet to come back and get her email, just wonderful, made me feel bad for even complaining so fiercely.
Oh, and before I forget: A bit belated, but there was a trip to Batcave this weekend, my second. I can't say as it was as good as the first time, mostly because of the music, but I won't say it was worse either, you know? I mean, I love this club. I love people dressed up in goth outfits, I loved the shine and shimmer of patent leather and metal chains, brad, studs, piercings, and handcuffs. I felt good, like I had a real outfit instead of one cobbled together from an old shirt and a borrowed skirt to match my boots. This time, I had the red pleather pants, the white pleather top, and, well, the boots, shit yeah. I realized what my outfit needed to be complete were suspenders...there are perfect metal suspender rings on my pants, too. A pair of black suspenders would have matched perfectly with my black/white checkerboard on red background wristband, too. Next time, next time.
Michelle wore the black pleather dress she stunned me with when we were shopping in Hot Topic. Some one else had my top, which was miffy, but eh, didn't see her more than just the once. Guess she went downstairs. (she also had my skirt which I wasn't wearing at the time, but grrrr) Lisa looked grand in her cabbie cap and neon fishnets worn as arm bands, Julian had these awesome multicolored shoes, Carrie had Julian's corset top and neat-o knee-high boots, Ronnie had great hair and such a cute shirt, and and and...well, face it people, you all looked fantastic! Met up with Hattie and her friends there which r0xx0rs. What really r0xx0rs is that I managed to stay alert and not tired enough to be there till it closed!
Oh and Carrie made an idiot of herself staring at the Elf-guy dancing. He was admittedly very good and very cute, but sheesh. Cleaning up drool is not in the job description there. Plus he never changed how he danced, so it was neat, but well, very repetitive and eventually get-over-worthy. Not for Carrie. She had that stupid ass grin on the whole time.
Oh final scores? Anyone Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? I got one, I think Lisa got at least one, Carrie two? Michelle, one? Hattie? (score of who's been hit on) Jeff, one?
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Date: 2004-01-28 05:15 pm (UTC)and i didnt get into Law or Media Communication(again), but then did i really expect to? meh. f**king 80% average my ass.....