Things are continuing to go well, and I'm now immersed in the struggle to get my classes in order - as always, harder than it looks. I was all set to take Polish, which made me extremely happy, but there ended up being a time conflict (no class times are listed in the handbooks; you have to write to the professors after you register and pray that everything works out properly. In theory it always should but obviously, everything works in theory) so I'm going to try to take Hebrew instead, just for one term to get the proper number of credits. I was already told by one person that I couldn't do that, but I cleared it with the program director and we're both trying to get in touch with some other guy about the situation . . . basically now I'm letting nature take its course. But classes finally start on Monday, and I think I'll be thanking Dr. Imai for making write so many hypothesis testing papers for him, as my first class is Research Methods which basically takes us through how to write academically. I also have The Holocaust in History, which should be good, along with the Hebrew.
We also now have a fifth flatmate - Irene from Uganda. We're turning into a very diverse group. She's very nice and incredibly smart; she already has another MA from a university in Sweden. It's definitely nice that we're all getting along so nicely; it makes things much easier. Irene and I went out for dinner the second night she was here, after we met her (we met briefly during a fire alarm incident in our kitchen - no, I had nothing to do with it and there were no pancakes involved - but didn't realize who she was at first; I thought she was Fauzan's friend), and ended up finding a hole-in-the-wall cafe down Curry Mile that was really good. They had amazing fresh-squeezed orange juice, and pretty cheap food. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go back and try the lamb. And in all the halal markets, I've been finding lamburgers instead of hamburgers - this I find highly entertaining and I fully plan on eating at least one lamburger before I leave here.
Last night we had the welcome party for George Kenyon and Opal Halls (read: free food) and we got to socialize with people from the opposite dorms for a while. It ended up being pretty nice, and several of us didn't end up leaving until they started kicking us out. Afterward, Carlos and I went over to the Student Union with a couple of his friends (Kola from Nigeria and Valerie from China) to hang out and listen to some music. The guy playing when we got there was, for lack of a better word, unique. And interesting. Very interesting. I'd be hard pressed to describe what kind of music he was playing, and then he did an a capella song about electricity which I can only liken to Kipp's "I Love Technology" song. Valerie and I especially were not impressed, but I give him credit for going up there and actually singing a song about electricity and the miracles of power plants, especially when you could his choreographed marching steps. However, after him there was a girl who sang and she was great. All she needs is to be discovered, because her voice was amazing - very rich and full. As far as females go, she had oomph. During this time (well, not so much her, but the guy and the DJ interlude), Kola and I embarked on a highly enjoyable discussion including but not limited to religion, China's economic rise, the US in the international arena, the history of Israel, motivational literature, whether or not it's an zero-sum world (Dr. Imai, I did not disappoint you), and Scrabble. For much of it we disagreed but in such a nice, polite, and enjoyable way that it was in no way an argument, but a discussion. We think a Scrabble club might be in order.
I've come to realize since being here that I'm really kind of ashamed at how little most Americans know of the world beyond North America. All of these people from all over the world know tons of stuff about us, but we don't know much at all about them. Even if they have misconceptions of the US, at least they have a conception of it. Intellectually I already sort of knew that this was how it usually works, and I had some experience with it in undergrad, but it's becoming more and more pronounced now. I'm really glad that I was an IR major in undergrad because I can usually manage to talk somewhat intelligently about issues affecting other places (and explain to someone the other how how Al-Qaeda feeds off internal civil unrest), and because if you aren't somewhat informed here and you try to talk to anyone, you look like an idiot.
And speaking of internationalism - the "Canadian, Please" video is hilarious :D Excellent recommendation, Putzel.
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