Abbreviated freshers' week

[cosmolinguist]

Somehow all my freshers' week stuff was mostly crammed into three days, which is kind of nice since I'm done with it now, which gives me time for volunteering orientation, a passport interview, a doctor's appointment, and a weekend of being in Yorkshire because of Thought Bubble.

Overall it's gone pretty well. I was nervous of feeling out of place but I really haven't. Everyone's been nice and neither I nor anyone else has called attention to me being twice their age (though I have felt it, especially since I keep coming home and taking naps, and they've been going out every night according to scraps of overheard conversation).

I've done all the bureaucracy: enrolled on everything (except my language, working on that), got my student card, met my advisor, peppered my department's admin with questions...I've been to welcome talks and figured out where some of the rooms in the rabbit warren that is the building I'll be spending most of my time in.

I've made a friend! I went to this divisional "party" thing on Monday, which is where you stand in an echoy room with a bunch of other people standing inexplicably close together. This was on Monday so I was at my most self-conscious and sure no one would talk to me, but she just walked right up and did. She's called Kitty...well, she's not because she's Chinese and can't expect people to say her name. But she told it to me, Weijia, and I said it back to her and she said my pronunciation was good but I can't remember it now! She turned up in the group meeting with our advisor today, and we were happy to see each other.

I had my introductory meeting with disability services yesterday, too. Which was great, but kind of weird. I left it convinced that if I'd had even half that support when I first went to college, I wouldn't have to be trying again now. At the time I was still firmly of the belief that I wasn't mentally ill, I was just rubbish. So much of that could have been different.

But then if it was I might not have written so much that Andrew saw on LiveJournal and he wouldn't have been able to identify with me as much as he did and maybe wouldn't have wanted to talk to me and I certainly wouldn't have visited him here if my life had stayed on the track it was supposed to be on. Things would be so different down the other leg of the trousers of time that it doesn't bear thinking about.

Comments

[haggis]

Thank you for posting this! I am loving hearing about the course!

[scarlettina]

"...down the other leg of the trousers of time..." I love this expression. Love it.

[cosmolinguist]

I learned it from Terry Pratchett books, where it's used to express this kind of idea.

[magic_at_mungos]

But also names are hard to remember. Especially with names that you're not familiar with. Maybe when you get to know each other a bit better, ask her which one she prefers to be called? The way I see it is it's the difference betwen named something like Rebecca but you're actually a Becky or pref r your middle name which is Sarah

[cosmolinguist]

I ended up talking about some of these issues on Twitter the other day, with po8crg making another point I'd thought of: the "English" names are usually chosen by the individual unlike their given names. I don't want to presume that the English names are necessarily more or less good for them. I just feel weird being so monolingual and from cultures that are a blight upon all that they contact. :)