While talking about Univ. of Chicago...

JB: I went to the dining hall... Hutchinson, I think it was called... and suddenly I didn't know if I was back at uni as an undergraduate, trying to lie through my teeth that no, the reason my paper is late is NOT because I was getting drunk in London over the weekend while trying to cozen my ex-girlfriend back into my arms but because my uncle had a brain biopsy and I had to be there. I almost could hear Harry yelling that they were going to the Undercroft, thought that I must be at the informal rather than the formal because I wasn't in a jacket. Then I realised that I was in America, not Oxford. And that this is not Christ Church and I don't have to go back and write the paper in my room.

M: That would be because that dining hall is modeled after the dining hall in Christ Church.

JB: Oh my goodness! Christ Church is taking over the world!

M: You wish. I wonder what it would have been like to be a student there.

JB: It's no different from any other university, apart from all the pomp and the fluff they dress you with. Believe me when I say this: you do NOT want to take your end-of-year exams in that ridiculous gown. I nearly fell asleep my final year. You'd have your occasional stars - like Stephen Hawking, for instance - but otherwise half the students are drunk. Or too busy trying to evade the scientific way of creating life out of nothing and going the more orthodox way instead.

M: About Stephen Hawking, I have something interesting to tell you.

JB: This better be good, because I am on tenterhooks.

M: Did you know that Stephen Hawking is quite a ladies' man?

JB: No, I did not! How on earth can he?! He has muscular dystrophy! He can't even speak!

M: JB, darling, there are no muscles where it counts in what he does to be a ladies' man.

JB: Oh good lord...

But seriously... I know it's a s grandiose building and everything, but mimicking it thrice is getting a bit boring.

Second week of lectures is almost over, and one would think that by second week the schedule chaos would be turned into cosmos.

Evidently not.

During the first week, I was dishonourably enrolled in Biology 101, which is clearly an introductory class. After sitting all the way in the back of the lecture theatre and sleeping through most of it (it was early in the morning!), I went to the head of the biology department to complain. After running a check they had discovered that my class for Molecular Biology of the Cell HAD transferred successfully, which lists Biology 101, 111, 102, 112 as pre-requisites. Hence I had been dropped from the class and re-enrolled in Genetics. Which was fine with me.


But then, on Wednesday the writings lecturer for a mandatory writing class that all students must take came up to me. Evidently my essay regarding a certain reading assignment was so impressive (quoth the head of the writing program "it was graduate level") that it was unnecessary for me to take the class, it was waste of money and time. So I have now been dropped from THAT class as well, and am now in search of a suitable English class to take instead.

Of course, JB and IM had such a laugh about it. "It's rather silly", said JB, "for you to take a preliminary writing class. How many research papers have you written?"

"More than enough."

"Exactly. They should have acknowledged that. Every class assigns a writing assignment in Britain."

"Wow, they really underestimated you," said IM.

So that is where I am. And while I am pleased that I do not have to take the class, I am rather upset because the class I did want to take - Survey of British Literature - is currently closed due to full capacity. Having to register late is certainly not my fault and the other options are Chaucer (yuck), and American Literature (even more yuck). I never did well in American literature to begin with. I don't think I have the American mentality to comprehend what the author is trying to get at. I never read my reading assignments for American Literature back in high school thoroughly, resorting to cliffsnotes instead. So taking AmLit is NOT an option.

So here we are, and this is a mess. Goodbye, UCWR110.