Yesterday was Orientation Day for me and many of the other transfer students who will be attending the University of Minnesota this fall. Before attending orientation, I managed to dredge up a few memories. First, I flashed back to my CSC orientation, which took place the weekend before school started. A whole weekend of thoughtfully planned and beautiful workshops and picnics and brunches and masses, or so I'm told. I wouldn't know as I skipped most of orientation.
The second memory involved visiting the U of MN bookstores, when I was a rep, during orientation week. Every time I saw a telltale yellow sign with maroon lettering, telling students "orientation this way," I would cringe. I don't know why I have such an aversion to orientation, and I don't wish to examine it too closely, but I did decide that I was going to be cheerful and listen to every word uttered by an orientation "leader," without rolling my eyes.
When I walked into the Main Hall at Coffman Memorial Union, I saw a number of adults who were my age—each of which was accompanying their eighteen-year-old. It was really hard to fight the feeling that I didn't belong here. But, soon, students were divided into their colleges. With a handful of other College of Design students—interior design and graphic design—over to the St. Paul campus, to the building, McNeal Hall, where all my interior design classes will be held.
At McNeal Hall, I listened attentively to presentations on campus involvement opportunities, career services, and study abroad programs, among others. I also had a chance to see how my credits transferred from St. Kate's (all but PE and Sister Vera Chester's Intro to World Religions class?!), as well as the outlay of my program. Then, I met my adviser; took a tour of the classrooms, studio, and lab; and registered for classes.
I am so excited I can hardly stand it. My adviser is cool and will be a great help. The studio and lab were inspiring. and, my classes, well, I can't wait! For the first semester I am enrolled in the following: foundations in color design; intro to design thinking, which has an extra discussion section; and studio 1, where I will create my portfolio for the review I need to pass to start year two. Next week I'll order my textbooks online.
Until then, there's much to do...a house to get in order, freelance work to line up, Camp Mom to conduct, friends to see before I disappear.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
no place like home
I'm back from my vacation. We returned on Sunday night, after 19 hours of traveling, which included two flights, a long layover in Chicago, and an unexpected two-hour delay on the tarmac. I know our two hours were nothing compared to those poor folks who, a few days earlier, sat on a grounded Continental plane for six hours—from midnight to six a.m. Yowza! Still, my back and knees ached with an unaccustomed sharpness, which lessens a little each day.
That said, the inconvenieces of traveling in the 21st century, coupled with the pains attendant to near-middle age, are well worth it for the adventure and foreign culture.
I'm glad to be home, sleeping in my own bed, drying off with fluffy towels, sharing my bathroom with just one person (or three persons, tops), eating abundant, locally grown produce, not needing to ask "do you speak English?" (every Swede does, still...). The cats are finally adjusting to having us home...Nancy, in particular, has required extra strokes, and I'm not surprised since she'd been abandoned. Though sometimes I swear the cats are wondering where that nice girl who feed them each day has gone.
Stockholm sparkled. Seriously. The city is situated on an archipelego in the Baltic. Water pretty much everywhere you look.
And, Visby—what can I say about Visby? This 13th century town is a hidden treasure. Now I understand its popularity among Swedes. We heard an occasional conversation in French or English, but most tourists were Scandinavian. Funny thing? When you remove the language, Swedes look just like Minnesotans. Perhaps that's a Big Duh, but I found it pretty astonishing. The photo captures the view from our room at the top of the house. The skies were amazingly blue like that every day. I shouldn't complain, but sometimes all that sunniness was downright oppressive.
I'd like to report more now, but I simply don't have the energy. In addition to jetlag, I am wrestling with technology. Due to unforeseen circumstances, such as my camera up and disappearing before the trip, we had to use our Olympus Camedia, a first-generation digital camera that still works perfectly well despite the fact that it's over ten years old and its memory cards are completely obsolete. Nonetheless, were able to buy a few cards on Ebay, and unbeknownst to us, they're corrupt. I can see all 186 photos on my camera, but I cannot upload them to any of our computers. Please don't tell my husband I'm having an expensive data recovery done. Now that I think about it, the price is less than what my therapist will charge as if she has to coach me through letting go. As soon as I have photos, I will post them.
Despite jetlag, I am rapidly reentering Real Life...must run Son #1 to drum lessons.
Stay tuned!
That said, the inconvenieces of traveling in the 21st century, coupled with the pains attendant to near-middle age, are well worth it for the adventure and foreign culture.
I'm glad to be home, sleeping in my own bed, drying off with fluffy towels, sharing my bathroom with just one person (or three persons, tops), eating abundant, locally grown produce, not needing to ask "do you speak English?" (every Swede does, still...). The cats are finally adjusting to having us home...Nancy, in particular, has required extra strokes, and I'm not surprised since she'd been abandoned. Though sometimes I swear the cats are wondering where that nice girl who feed them each day has gone.
Stockholm sparkled. Seriously. The city is situated on an archipelego in the Baltic. Water pretty much everywhere you look.
And, Visby—what can I say about Visby? This 13th century town is a hidden treasure. Now I understand its popularity among Swedes. We heard an occasional conversation in French or English, but most tourists were Scandinavian. Funny thing? When you remove the language, Swedes look just like Minnesotans. Perhaps that's a Big Duh, but I found it pretty astonishing. The photo captures the view from our room at the top of the house. The skies were amazingly blue like that every day. I shouldn't complain, but sometimes all that sunniness was downright oppressive.I'd like to report more now, but I simply don't have the energy. In addition to jetlag, I am wrestling with technology. Due to unforeseen circumstances, such as my camera up and disappearing before the trip, we had to use our Olympus Camedia, a first-generation digital camera that still works perfectly well despite the fact that it's over ten years old and its memory cards are completely obsolete. Nonetheless, were able to buy a few cards on Ebay, and unbeknownst to us, they're corrupt. I can see all 186 photos on my camera, but I cannot upload them to any of our computers. Please don't tell my husband I'm having an expensive data recovery done. Now that I think about it, the price is less than what my therapist will charge as if she has to coach me through letting go. As soon as I have photos, I will post them.
Despite jetlag, I am rapidly reentering Real Life...must run Son #1 to drum lessons.
Stay tuned!
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