At the totally crowded admissions office, where the tour started, they asked around loudly "so, who of you guys is actually a senior in high school?". No hands were raised. "Oh, so you're all juniors? Oh boy. Oh, err, any transfer students?" I raised my hand halfway and said "kinda". They asked me to have "my tour guide" bring me back to the office after the tour.
Outside the door, we split up into the five groups and a girl from - was it South Carolina?, she was a first year (oh great), started walking backwards in front of us and talking and talking.
This is what the insides of the "main quadrangle" on campus here look like.
They have a small chapel here that U of C students actually seem to get a discount at when they get married. Scary.We also entered in some hallways around classrooms.
The people you see are actually in the next tour group.Here, I couldn't help but digress from our tour guides' explanations to take a picture of a bulletin board on the wall. The Educational Guidelines for Sexual Consent :D
As you can imagine, I was appalled to read that "According to the Illinois Criminal Sexual Assault Statute consent cannot be given when any person is intoxicated, unconscious or asleep". Whaaa?What's worse: "Giving someone drugs or alcohol with the intent to impair his or her judgment or make them unconscious violates the Illinois law." Huh? So what exactly are those 40-ish-year-old dudes doing buying those future trophy-wife barely-legal college chicks drinks? That's illegal! And I thought only Germans had a tendency to over-regulate things.
They did have nothing but pretty buildings in the main quadrangles and what our guide told us about initiation ceremonies and lots of other fun and cheesy traditions that we do need to introduce in Germany as well.But I doubt that this has a chance - it feels like pretty much everything around here is upside down when it comes to university. The tour that first year student gave us felt more like a sales pitch. Even when she told us that she does feel secure on the campus. Yes she does. And those big poles with the red panic button that say "emergency" in big blue letters are there to make you even more secure. She said that you could even hit them while running from your predator. By the sequence in which you hit on the buttons the police will be able to tell where you're running. So cool! The little girl's mom that was with us started hyperventilating. Anyway. It still felt like that tour guide was trying to sell the university to us. Which I suppose she was. The university here gets a huge deal of money through tuition so there actually is a competition between universities trying to attract as many students as possible.
Well, she didn't quite convince me to pay tuition.
Later, back in the admissions office, I explained my status and asked whether they saw a chance that I'd get a student ID. The nice lady explained that the medschool really was quite detached from the rest of the university and that I would have to check with the "secretaries over there". I did want the student ID for several reasons .. for one you get into a lot of stuff much cheaper, you get into frat and sorority parties at all, you get public transportation around campus, you get free access to the Ratner athletics facilities, free wireless on campus, access to libraries (yeah, I know, what for) and to student eating places (ah-HAH!). So we would have to check with the secretaries later.
First, Trillian and I checked out the Co-Op book store our guide had mentioned in the tour. That one was fun. It was underground.
I don't know what text book rush is but it sounds scary.
Trillian really loved this place.
Images can't really convey the crammed atmosphere this place had, where books were stacked up to the low ceiling, even between pipes, and shelves were individually constructed to hold a maximum of books in the twisted little rooms.
The place was pretty big though. I for one couldn't make out any kind of order though in which the books were arranged. I believe finding what you're looking for in here was a mere game of luck.
One section apparently contained the books required for certain courses at the university and were conveniently arranged with course numbers. Service is everything over here.
Walking back home, we passed the fraternity houses that had banners hanging out. There was actually an announcement for a "dirty doctors and naughty nurses party" on Friday whose proceeds would benefit doctors without borders supposedly. Unfortunately, U of C ID would be required there, too. Oh well.
Back at home, I needed some calories since I hadn't had breakfast.
When I had eaten this little pizza, I felt strong enough to make more food (heheh) for the return invitation of CS and BT who arrived at 6.
When they arrived, we feasted and had a nice conversation even though CS was post-call.
The food cleared out nicely.
Right before the other two girls had arrived, a UPS man had been at the door. I was in the kitchen busy at the stove, so Trillian went down (our door buzzer doesn't work). We didn't know it was a UPS man. We expected the girls. So Trillian was surprised to find the UPS man with this package.
A beauty, eh? Cleverly, the guy made Trillian sign for the package before he showed it to her. When she alarmedly ran up to me to get me to look at it, I saw nothing but the back of the UPS guy running across the street to his van getting in and driving off.I wonder what they do to these packages to make them look so terribly worn.
The inside wasn't that much better off. The back fender was pretty nastily twisted and buckled and there was a huge scratch on the bike itself. But other than that the parts of the bike seemed kind of usable.
Yes, "parts" of the bike. Assembly required.
So I went at it.
Maybe half an hour later, I was sitting on my 1-speed beach cruiser bike.
While it IS pretty, it's much too small for me (but the biggest/only size they had for male adults .. this was the USA, right?) and even after extensive bending of the fenders, there's still something apparently rubbing on the front wheel.Oh well. Now I just need to find something to get air into those wheels.
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