Another post so soon, I know, but they'll probably slow down when life gets settled here. I'm going to try and talk about the last two days in less detail, so my this post isn't a novel like my last one.
So orientation was Sunday, and I had agreed to meet the French kids at the on-campus 7/11 at 9:45. Apparently, there's more than one campus 7/11, but I still managed to find them simply by noticing how tall they all are. It was then that I met the three German students, who are also only staying for one semester, and together the seven of us headed off to the site of our indoctrination. The first part of orientation was splitting into our respective groups - the German girl Britta and I were in group one, and since she knows no Chinese, I got to pretend to help figure out what was going on. We joined our group, who stood away from us like we emitted some sort of deadly virus, and waited to be ushered into a dark series of rooms with no air conditioning. It was about this time I started wondering why in a country like Taiwan, there were any buildings left at all without A/C - personally it seemed like it'd be a priority. At this point, it became massively chaotic; people running everywhere, yelling, confusion, so Britta and I just hung out in a corner and watched the mayhem unfold. Finally, they started with a little introduction, cleverly introducing all the OIEP (office of international exchange programs) workers in a part of the room nobody could really see them. Phase one behind their plot to ensure we have no idea where to go or who to talk to for help. They introduced all the group leaders, made sure we got a packet full of little forms and brochures, then we marched back out into the sun to take a picture. Then, we marched back inside, and split into two groups - the Chinese/Hong Kong students and the Japanese/European students. I milled about for a minute before deciding to pretend to be European for a day, which ended up being a good idea.
So we were put in another unbearably stuffy room where we were questioned on our Visa types and given an explanation on class selection in very confusing English. I was able to follow mostly because the Japanese translator was pretty good, but I could tell the Europeans were pretty checked out of the proceedings. We got through everything and were given a cute little boxed lunch of things I didn't venture to eat. I try to be adventurous when it comes to food most of the time, my exception being really weird looking western food. If there's one thing travel in Asia has taught me, it's that their concept of western food is very different from our own.
We were then shuffled into another room where we were asked about bank accounts, and whether we wanted to go to a farm next Saturday. I'm not kidding.
Then it was time to apply for a cell phone, and I happily signed my name and handed over $400NTD (about $12USD) for my SIM card, only to learn it would take about a week to get it. Phase two behind their plot to ensure we have no idea where to go or who to talk to for help. I knew it was a plot because they seemed to smile when they said to call if we had any questions. Very sneaky, OIEP.
At that point we were supposed to go off on the campus and city tours, but my group decided to go see a movie instead. Knowing nothing about where to go on campus, the Europeans elected an actual staff member of OIEP to take us on a mini-tour, which lasted about ten minutes and consisted of "Here is bank, post office, book store, Chinese language center, and bus stop, ok?". With the regular groups having disappeared at this point, the Europeans decided to go their separate ways and after a few minutes with the French, I decided to go back to my room and cool off before the city tour that afternoon.
At 4:15, we met for the city tour (well, I was ten minutes late because I got lost - that campus is ENORMOUS) and all piled onto a bus for the longest and most uncomfortable ride ever. It took at least an hour to get through traffic, only for us to arrive at this Western food restaurant. We had dinner, which also took forever, then waited around for another hour or so for someone to show up and tell us where to go next. It was then decided that we'd go back to campus. In total, we spent about five hours on dinner; I suppose the city tour was the bus ride? Anyways, at that time a bunch of students decided to go out shopping, but being the good jet-lagged student that I was, I retired to my room to try and pick out classes for the semester (knowing that classes started the next morning). I spent about four hours of my own time mashing my way through the system, and finally became so frustrated with trying to figure everything out on my own in a foreign language, that I decided to go to bed and find someone to help me Monday morning.
Of course, when Monday morning came, I didn't really want to ever get up or leave my suite. I think it was mostly from anxiety at that point, anxiety caused by not knowing my classes and not knowing who to ask for help. I knew that if I didn't get the right classes, I wouldn't be able to graduate on time and staying another year is NOT an option. After about six hours of lazing about my suite (only so much can be done in 350 sq feet after all), I finally left to see what could be done about the chaos. I wandered around campus, asking for directions to the OIEP office and was directed instead to the CLC (Chinese language center). Not what I was looking for, but close enough. After a few minutes arguing that I knew Chinese classes hadn't started yet, it got through that I was trying to take other classes as well; amazing. A really nice, pretty cute guy helped me out with finding a bunch of the classes and figuring out the system, and then enlisted the help of another student working in the CLC to call the different departments and ask about what teachers and classes would be best for me. Finally, the kind of help I was looking for! They took my map and labeled everything, found people I could talk to in each department, and the other student even walked me to my first class that afternoon. Because our time was cut short by that first class, the guy told me to come back the next day around 10 or 11 so he could finish helping me with everything.
So I headed over to my first class, Principles of International Business, a course actually taught by an American professor from Chicago. My good friend Tiffany was also in the class, which was a major awesome bonus to spend time with her. After class, I headed over to her place for a bit and we met with her friends for dinner. It was decided that I should only speak Chinese, which was a great decision if not for the fact that they were speaking amongst themselves with extremely casual language. By extremely casual, I mean that they randomly drop important words or stop mid sentence. Where I was doing great listening and speaking earlier that day in the CLC, I was completely lost during dinner and felt more a fool for it. I did manage to get some decent payback though, when I was showing them how to sound more American when speaking english and completely took off with all the slang and fast-talk I could muster. Not so much fun to receive, is it?
We split then, Tiffany and I heading to the supermarket while everyone headed back home, and after shopping around for a bit we called it a day.
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