Introduction to Chemistry

On Thursday and Friday the 2nd and 3rd of October, I had the real introduction to my studies. I was very nervous at first, because this would be the first time that I'd be in Uni without my International friends. In hindsight, it was nothing to be worried about really and I knew that all the other people would feel the same way as I did, but it's still very nerveracking...

Thursday we started with a Welcome to Chemistry, which was very general and included another lecture about safety and security on the uni grounds (which I heard like 3 times before already...O.o;). Actually I can't remember much about the lecture really (it's somewhere inside my head, but it won't come out. I guess the nerves took over and erased it from my memory O.O Maybe this is how people feel when they've been kidnapped by aliens *-*!?).

So after that lecture we were put into family groups and met our "parents"! (2nd year student who showed us the Uni (again!O.o;) and who we can turn to when we need advice) We had lunch and asked them loads of questions XD. I got 2 new mothers and a daddy :D Louise, Martina (I'm not sure if I got that one right, though) and George. They're all really cool, Louise is a really good mother who really looks after everyone and organizes everything, Martina (?) is more there for answering questions about going out and George is a cricket-playing-daddy who does a bit of both :D

So after lunch we went back to another lecture about what we expect from the uni and what is expected of us and about plagiarism and of course about safety.... There was another lecture in which we were told what the optional courses are and we'd then have to register for 3, but when we had all just taken our seats (120 people!) the firealarm went off.............. We had to of course evacuate the building. This was not a drill! We had to walk slowly to the grass behind the library, no need to panic O.O According to my daddy this was actually the first time he'd experienced the fire alarm going off, so apparently it WAS serious. (Later it turned out that an electrician had accidentaly broken the glass on a firealarm switch with his elbow, setting off the alarm and making us all evacuate the building for nothing *-*! When we had gone into the building again (after we'd waited in the cold for 15 minutes) we did our registration for our "electives", the optional courses of which we had to choose 3 and had another break.

Lastly we had to go into the lecture theater again, this time for a zapper session and survey. We'd all get these small remote controls and had to answer a question after which the answers would be put into percentages, so we could see how many people answered what, which was actually quite cool, but after the long day (it was already 4 pm and we'd been there since 10 am) we were all quite tired and didn't actually feel like answering questions for another 1.5 hours... It was fun, but sleepyness and a headache made me really want to go home.
I made some cool friends in my family group, but I think I'll make some real and permanent friends when we start the practical labwork, as you really need to work together to make it the experiments work.

Friday was worse then Thursday....... First off we had another safety lecture O.o; The 4th one of my stay here. Then we had a quiz with zappers, cool but very pointless. We had another break, 2 mock lectures about curly arrows and physical chemistry (history on the atomic model), which were not very interesting, as I already knew most of it, but it was especially nice to experience an example of a "real" lecture. We had lunch and then the real treat started:
We were going to get another tour of the chemistry building (of which I'd already had 2), but my parents decided to show us a few rooms and then have another break, as we had like and hour and 15 minutes to kill. After this long break we had our ID checking. We were getting our student ID cards, but because of new rules, we had to prove that we were who we said we were by showing 2 ID's (my ID card from home and passport). This was done in 10 minutes after which we had yet ANOTHER 1 hour break, because we had to wait for the other group to finish "pipelining" before we could do so. Thus, after 1 hour we went to pipelining. This is an activity to improve teamwork and social connections. We had to do pointless things and listen to pointless talks, after a long day in which we did a lot of pointless waiting around.... In other words: we were tired of waiting and annoyed that we had to wait for THIS, which we saw as a pointless, activity.

All in all, I made some friends and learnt some new things (not that much). I got way too many safety and security lectures and went to bed early each day with a headache and the radiator high (cause it was freezing outside!). I watched some Joan of Arcadia and really missed mom crying beside me (cause something sad and dramatic happened), so I cried alone and watched some more ^-^

Tomorrow (monday the 6th) I'll have my first real lectures, I hope to write up some more fun stories for you XD
Love you all!
~xxx~ Fleury