And Exams are Fast Approaching

So the count-down has started for the beginning of the academic year at Vassar. It's very weird to think about that and the fact that I won't be there this semester. Over here I'm basically half-way through my semester. Our exams are coming up this week, which means I should be studying right now. Whoops. We may have just had our media exam canceled, which I think I'm happy about. Except that means we have one less grade and I haven't gotten the grade back on the paper I wrote last week, so I'll let you know later if I'm actually excited about the prospect of not having an exam.

Speaking of grades, of all the papers I've gotten back I have yet to get a grade in the 80s. Never fear, the grading system is very different here. Apparently we inflate grades in the United States to an insane degree. The IHRE program has worked out a conversion for us Americans. Basically it works like this:
75-100 - A
70-74 - A-
68-69 - B+
62-67 - B
60-61 - B-
58-59 - C+
and it continues, with an F being a 44 or lower.
It's still disconcerting to get a paper back in the 70s. I talked to a friend and he said that he has only heard of one person in his year ever getting above a 90 and the professor (who didn't grade the paper, the tutor graded it) said that he wasn't sure about the grade because he never gives grades above a 90 to undergraduate students.

So this was my first full week after my break in the States. The only hard thing about spending a week away was the fact that I had to use up almost all the food in my fridge, which meant that until I had time to go shopping (not until Wednesday) I was a little stuck. I had a lot of oatmeal, some salmon that I had in my freezer, and I ordered in food with some people. But not to worry, I can feed myself again. And I brought back a lot of spices from the States, which I am very excited to use in my numerous cooking adventures. I went to see the film Julie/Julia with my parents while home and it made me want to be more ambitious with my cooking. And then I realized that all I had was a hotplate. When I get home though... eh maybe I'll cook. It's hard to motivate yourself when you have two parents who cook so wonderfully. We'll see.

Yesterday was a pretty full day. In the morning I met with my state sovereignty group to work on our presentation on Zimbabwe and the international community that we were going to give later that day. It was a presentation that I felt a little disconnected from because for the large part of the research and meetings I was in the States. However, I did make the powerpoint, with no help from the computer I have in my room. It doesn't even have Microsoft Word on it, there's no way it could handle powerpoint. So I found out all about the computer labs around campus. The best one being in the Commerce Library, and the most annoying one being the library closest to the International House. I say that because I went in, got yelled at for trying to use a computer that was turned off (I turned it on and then was scolded for doing so), and then when I finally found a computer that worked I was told that the lab would only be open for another minute. Fun.

Anyways I found out (on like Monday or Tuesday of this week) that the dramatic presentation thing that I told you about a couple of weeks ago about HIV/AIDS was going on Friday as well. So I told my teacher and she kindly let our group go last. So I went out on Friday after our meeting, met up with Gift (the creator of the project) and this other drama student who drove us into New Town (maybe a five minute drive) to the Museum Africa. Our presentation thing was supposed to happen at 1:15, but instead it started around 1:35, which made me be the jittery person backstage freaking out about missing my presentation. Luckily the song is only about 5 min long and went well for the kind of informal practice we had been doing on it all semester. The audience was only very slightly enthusiastic, but they were a bunch of young school children, so I don't know what I was expecting. Right after our performance I ran out of the tiny little auditorium we performed in, got some free paraphernalia (like a shirt that says drama for life on it, it's pretty awesome, and this weird flat bag that sort of reminds me of what they put on you when you're going to get an x-ray, do you know what I'm talking about?), and then was driven back to Wits by yet another random person I met that day. He was very nice. I jumped out of the car the minute it stopped and ran all the way to my class. When I got there I ended up being right on time because my group was in front trying to figure out how to project the slide-show. We started about a minute after I sat down to do my very important and difficult group role of clicking the slide-show. I was totally necessary to my group. Anyways, we had two people do the actual presentation, both very knowledgeable and passionate about Zim, which was just good luck on the part of our group to have both of them. Especially since one of them is a youth leader in Zimbabwe. We got a really positive reaction from the class, which felt good, especially since this makes up almost 20% of our grade.

Later that night I was hanging out with some guys and we ended up driving around for a good deal of the night. I got KFC for possibly the first time in my life (it's pretty big here for some reason, I wouldn't exactly be tempted to go back sometime soon. It wasn't bad- it was just really greasy. Yeah so weird, deep-fried fast food that's greasy, what a concept), and then we went back to the International House, rallied up a lot of people and all went ice skating at a local mall. I shied away from playing ice skating tag that three of them were playing because I was just a little too shaky to skate around that fast, plus tag games scare me and I don't think anyone would appreciate me screaming. I didn't fall though, so that's a plus. I almost did while just standing there, but was caught by a friend who just happened to be standing right next to me when I decided to be uncoordinated. Lucky me.

Today I think I may stay in and do work. Or at least that's the plan now. People want to go to this park tomorrow where you can play with baby lions! And then go to this restaurant called Carnivores where they have an insane collection of different meat you can try (ex. Zebra, Antelope, Elephant etc) which should be interesting. I don't want to miss that because I have to do homework... thus doing it tonight. I am expecting a call at some point from one of my favorite guys in the whole world, so at the moment that's my biggest plan of the day. Besides that it's just going to be me and international human rights plugging away. And maybe some studying for upcoming exams. I'm a little nervous. I haven't had to take a final exam that involved going into the class and having to write essays since high school. I'm so used to doing take-home exams. Oh well, at least it will be completely done in two hours. That's something.