Import/Export

Depending on what happens monday when I go to have a chat with the people at school I may or may not be staying.

see, they have these rules for students, expensive rules. Which are a totally different subject, of course.

Well, in order to stay I have to pay my fees for this semester, get a receipt, and wait a day. Then I can get a bank statement (saying I have about 14kNZ sitting in my account) and get another receipt for $120 (yep, visa fees went up. Again.) and take that stuff, plus this whole other list of stuff I need (photos and applications and records and who knows what else) to the immigration desk on campus 10 days before my visa runs out, so they can get it renewed for me.

So I need to take receipts for things I haven't paid yet (still no loans) and bank statements with money I don't have, and the 120 for the fee, to this desk. Last wednesday.

Now, some time next week I'll have *some* money. But it won't be 24kNZ. Not even close to that. My stafford may or may not get here by friday, but even if it does, the school won't admit to having it for a week. I don't know if this is normal for universities, but it's honestly the only place I've ever heard of holding checks (cashed in the school's account the whole time) for a week before crediting the account.

But since, as I said, they hold those checks for a week, my account won't show even partial payment before friday (also known as the day before my visa runs out).

now yes, at least some of this is my fault. After all, I could have borrowed a huge-er pile of cash at crazy rates. I could have pestered the loan company to let me apply for my private loan earlier. Heck, I could have put it all on a credit card somewhere.

But I didn't do any of that. And so now if I don't get an extension (and I'm really not holding out any great hope) I have to leave.

Funny thing is, I might just go anyway. Anyone who's actually read the more coherent posts in here- the school related ones, anyway- will realise that I'm really not getting anywhere, except maybe in debt.

For comparison, what I've borrowed (and spent) in the last year would have been enough to travel on for at least 2 years. The tuition alone was enough for at least one really good year.

I am, oddly, not comfortable here. I don't know if it's the out there racism that I keep running into this last 6 months or so, or the way people here manage to be some of the best travelled xenophobes I've ever met. Or maybe it's just that I miss doritos. It could be how most of the local students think a great night hanging out with friends starts with a bottle of vodka each and ends with puking.

Or maybe I just want to go home because I know there is no way I'll actually study here. I have no motivation. The better I do, after all, the longer I have to stay. Call me commitment phobic.

So, probably wednesday or thursday I'll be taking off for home.

which means that this weekend I'm cleaning and pre-packing and doing laundry. I don't want to think about what else I have to do- who I need to see on monday, finding tickets, getting some/ any furniture for when I move back, getting rid of my bed here, telling the flatmates I'm taking off, and who knows what else.

Blegh.

I want my mommy.

I know- so mature.

j.

YAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

If i were to say there was a certain someone here in NZ I wanted to see dipped slowly in acid until her/his limbs dissolved while they screamed in hideous pain, with death at the end just for fun, would anyone here be really surprised?

If I told you this person (to whom I won't actually do this, since it would be waaaaay more work than the person is worth) worked for the university would it be surprising? How about if she (yes she) was so good at her job that she only answered e-mail after 8 days, without checking on anything before replying, and always with no information ("I'm sorry, I don't know if XYZ is here. name")? Would it really hurt to check? Is that not what office workers in direct contact with customers get paid to do?

On the exact same subject, my stafford loans get disbursed (less than 1/3rd of them, for some bob forsaken reason) this friday. The school will have it's money on or about the 30th, and will admit to having it sometime after I'm deported.

My private loan company contacted the school electronically on the 15th (that would be the 16th here, and a friday, which people seem to think is part of the weekend here....) but they haven't heard back, and the loan lady (who I so adore) hasn't heard from them. Really.

I would probably have fallen for this, but last year my loan was "sent" for about two weeks while it was sitting in a file on a desk. Somewhere. So I called the loan companies. And they told me all sorts of fun stuff. And now I want boiling acid and a huge vat and a crane. And an idea of where to go when I get kicked out of school for not paying my tuition. I was thinking south america then travel overland back to the states.... Maybe on my bike.

Maybe universities that are running out of money are exempt from decent customer service? Tho what with a good portion of their operating budget coming from international student tuition and fees, You'd think they'd try a bit harder. I might just do well enough here this semester to get back to Wyoming. After all, it's cheaper and they won't deport me.

j.

Highflyers

So there's a lame restaurant in town called Highflyers. At night it turns into, yep, a lame dance club.

At this lame dance club (with lame dance mixes and puke-smelling very young boys of less than admirable stature) just about every student hooks up at least once. It's a meat market.

And oh my bob does it suck.

Now, sure, if your only goal when you go out at night is to get drunk, dance like an idiot to bad (very very bad) music and get random sex with total strangers ending in a walk of shame the next day, then yeah, it's great. If, however, what you want is a decent night out with good music, decent drinks, and guys that are old enough to drink in the US, it is not the place for you. And indeed, not the place for me.

For tho I get puking drunk on cheap spanish wine, I don't get drunk on jack. I could drink that, or jamison's or even bailey's for weeks and not get drunk. And so groping and drinking and making out on the dance floor is not what I want to do. I want a good solid drinking bar. The kind you find chef's and cooks and waiters at. The kind I don't think I'll ever find here.

but yes, if you are in this town, and you want easy sex (and all the shiny new diseases that come with it) High Flyers is your place.

j.

Tales of a NZ summer

So summer is really really really here now- in the northern hemisphere equivalent of September. And a scorching day it was too.

People were heard to say such thoughtful things as "it's soooo hot" and "wow, it's really hot, let's find someplace cool."

So in celebration of this very hot weather, I bought myself a jar (yes, jar) of cranberry sauce (and not that whole berry crap either). And yes, it is yummy.

Oh, yeah, the scorching hot highs?

Around 29C or... wait for it

84F.

Yes, really. Prostrate in the streets from heat exhaustion. Wimps.

j.

Beware: evil course descriptions

So my schedule has changed a bit in the last two weeks or so. Some classes have gone away (animal health behavior and welfare, spanish) while others just won't leave me alone (chemistry?). And while I'm sure that's all interesting to someone out there, it's not what I feel like discussing just now.

Course descriptions, wonderful, useful, necessary things. Beautiful, helpful paragraphs and charts which tell you all about what you'll be doing next semester, or at least enough to figure out if you want that class or not. 3 hours lecture, 2 hours tutorial, or 4 hours lecture, or the ever popular 3 hours lecture, 3 hours lab.

Which brings me to my actual topic. One of the classes I'm taking, one of the interesting ones, is supposed to have 3 hours of lecture and 3 of lab each week. Either someone wrote something down wrong, or the lecturers are just a bit confused about what a lab is.

See, we have three hours each week in this class (so far) in a big boring lecture theater, listening to people read off their powerpoint slides. Directly off them. Then we are supposed to have three hours doing interesting stuff in a lab. You know, looking at slides, digging around in dead animals, playing with the slide making machine, whatever.

Instead we have our lab in a histology lab room. With easily over 100 seats. Comfy seats. soft seats. Ergonomically correct seats. warmth. low lights. Swimmy tables.

But we don't do lab stuff!

We get extra lectures! i timed it today- we spent a bit less than 40 minutes looking at slides and 2 hours getting lectured. One of them by a man who lisps like the big wig in Monty Python's Life of Brian.

so be careful when you pick classes- you might end up trying not to fall asleep while counting how often the lecturing lab guy says "um".

j.

a scary encounter

I thought, really, that I had escaped them when I moved to NZ, but no, they have followed me. I think I have some strange sort of locater beacon in my head or something. BFE texas (fort stockton) at a gas station, in wyoming, south carolina, new york, california, and now, finally here, in NZ.

What am I talking about? the Jehovah's Witnesses. They have found me again. Much easier to get rid of here, tho. I think they're used to a rather less religious prey. So I told them I was Jewish and sent them on their way.

I was born in a Jewish hospital, that's gotta be close enough. The academic advisor in high school thought so, anyway. And who am I do disagree with her?

So yeah, no knock down drag out fight, no pamphlets, no hellfire and badness. I gotta say, the Jewish thing works better here than at home. Maybe because there are only really about 4000 in the whole country. jews for jesus don't count, btw- the jesus thing makes you xian. sorry.

Now that I've offended just about everyone reading this (hello?) I guess I should wander off.

And I promise a real update that doesn't have me running in terror from people trying to make me bob-fearing. A beacon, I tell you.

j.