So not too much exciting has been happening lately due to school starting this week... well kinda starting...
I had two classes Monday right after each other (both with the same professor oddly enough, and the professor teaches both of the discussion sections too), so I stroll on over to the first class to find a note telling me that both the classes are canceled for the week. As weird as it was, I got a free beach day out of it, haha. My Tuesday class was half an hour instead of an hour due to the fact that the professor forgot to bring the syllabus, and my 3 hour Wednesday class lasted about an hour. In other words, the first week of class is not really existent at this school. Everyone I know had at least one of their classes canceled as well, it's quite the common theme.
Speaking of classes, this school does some weird things. For example... back at UCI I took Soc 1 and have to still take Soc 2 (the second intro to... class), so I figured I would take it here. There are two into classes here, "Soc 1: Intro to Sociology Part 1" and "Soc 2: Intro to Sociology Part 2," so naturally I registered for Soc 2. After the first day of actual instruction I realized I knew almost everything, so I went to talk to the professor. Turns out in this country you take Soc 2 before 1... she even looked at me like it was obvious and I should know... needless to say I had to drop the class, so I spent a while finding a class that fit and ended up with some other Sociology class...
School events here are slightly different than back home, last Saturday there was a school sponsored, ride-provided, trip to Club Xtreme, a big club/bar with free drinks all night. I feel like I need to reiterate that it is school sponsored again... when numerous fights broke out after the club as we were waiting for our ride back I realized that school events aren't what I am used to.
We have a dog who lives here at the dorms with us who is ironically named Gato. The story goes that she used to live up the street with a family, but one day wandered down to the dorm area and never left. She is a clean dog and is the community pet for the hall who gets plenty of love from everyone.
Every night around 9:00 there is a bread lady who comes to campus and sells bread/pasteries. It has turned out to be quite usefull since most places close at like 7 or so around here, so a nighttime pastery is very nice.
For whatever reason, females outnumber males at a ratio of 8:1 at this school. We have 10 halls in our dorm area, 8 for girls and 2 for guys, and the male halls aren't full. My floor of 6 rooms has only had 2 people since I got here. Also, people from all ages dorm together, so my neighbor is a third year (the final year here), while most of the rest of the residents are freshmen.
Security is tight here, well they like to make it seem like it is... The whole hall is surrounded by a fense with barbed wire on top of it to prevent anyone from coming in, and at the one enterance there is a guard who checks to see if you have your hall card before you come in. There are a few problems with this though. 1. I have never been asked for my residence card, I don't know anyone else who has either. 2. The guards are frequently asleep on duty. Yup, security is tight here...
The mail system in this country is pretty bad, well at least for the university. Turns out FedEx is the only way that mail will come straight to the university, and into my hands. Sending anything else gets sent to a local post office (which I have no idea where it is), and they don't have any way of informing me or the office if the mail arrives. This means that every day I have to go to the office here and ask if they can call the post office to check if my mail has come. It also takes much longer than promised by shipping compaines to arrive. USPS said 6-10 days for my package (which includes my camera), but it has already been 12 days and nothing has arrived. Other than that, I still have no idea how to send mail or how to pay for it. My first step would be to find the post office, but I haven't had time to roam around searching for the office. As soon as I do figure everything out though then I can get some postcards together and send stuff. And if anyone wants to attempt to send me something, fully knowing I may never get it, my address is:
Steve Ponce
Frank Worrell Hall
University of the West Indies
Cave Hill Campus
P.O. Box 64
Bridgetown
BARBADOS
sorry for the lack of pictures, my temp camera is broke and my new one hasn't come yet. Updates will come when I have stories to tell...
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