Orientation Week – Part 2

I saw that I only had a few minutes until the lecture started so I took the campus map the lady gave me and tried to figure out where to go next all the while hoping she’d keep an eye on my suitcase. The lecture was in the International Relations (IR) building, which seemed really close to the library where I was.  Turns out it was a 10 minute walk which means I would be late for the lecture.  I was already a day late and showing up in the middle of lecture would reinforce the stereotype for desis being late for everything; however, I’ve come to learn that this is not a desi-only problem.

After asking a few students where the G102 classroom was, I finally made it there.  It was about 10 minutes past the lecture start time and the classroom was empty.  I saw one guy sitting outside the class on the bench, so I asked him if he was there for the lecture and he said yes.  He seemed to be surprised that no one was here as he was there 5 minutes before the start time.  We thought they moved the lecture to a different room but decided to wait a little longer.  So we talked for a bit and I learned that he was from Montenegro and in Turkey as a Phys. Ed. Staff exchange member from his university in Serbia.  Finally we saw a large group emerge from around the corner of the hall.  As the group passed by us and headed into the classroom I noticed a lot of them were in smaller groups and each one was speaking a different language.  I knew we were in the right place.

There’s about a hundred or so exchange students in our batch and its also a very diverse group.  We have a large amount from eastern/central Europe like from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Montenegro, Bosnia, Serbia.  There are about 7 students from America, making them the next largest group.  The rest of the students range from different places like Italy, Germany, England, Iran, Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, Yemen, Iraq and Portugal.  Christine and I are the only Canadians here and we’re both from Calgary too.

The purpose of these lectures are to interest the students in taking the class during the semester. Basically they provide a teaser of what’s to come in the course.  Besides the Turkey/EU one we also attended lectures on Turkish Customs and Traditions, Turkish Internal Migration and its consequences, Turkish Foreign Policy, and a Turkish Beginners language class.

After the lecture we had a 2 hour break before we’d head out for a field trip to Ataturk’s Mausoleum.  During the break I split up from the group and was going to look for my dorm.  I walked back to the study abroad office at the library, picked up my luggage and was off looking for Dorm 9.  I asked one girl passing by where to walk to as the dorm numbers weren’t on the map. She looked at my luggage and thought I was crazy. It was a solid 20-minute walk from where I was and one thing to know about this campus is that it’s not flat but very hilly.  I thought it wouldn’t be too big of a deal until I started walking and the path near the library was like the old school cobblestone roads.  It was bad for my rolling suitcase so I carried that in my arms with my full backpack on my back.  The hunt for dorm 9 was on.  After walking 5 minutes with a 50 pound bag in my arms and knowing I still had a ways to go I noticed a taxi on the side of the road so I waved him down and decided to take the easy way out.  Using my hands I explained to him where I want to go and we were off.  After reaching dorm 9 I realized the dorm manager didn’t know English so I just handed him my student ID card, filled out some paperwork which was all in Turkish, and I had no idea what a few of the documents were but I just signed them anyways.  I was warned about this beforehand and told to just sign whatever they give me.  With the suitcase in my arms he stacked the sheets, pillow and blanket on me and told me to walk up the stairs to room 306.  There was no one in the room so I set down my bags, made my bed and laid down for half an hour before heading back to meet the group for our field trip.

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