Me-shell vs the world

about life

michelle_grigg — Sat, 1 Sep 2007 07:07:00 GMT

Hi all,

I have now officially finished my first week of school here at San Jose State. First impressions? Actually that’s a hard one, the campus is pretty huge I read somewhere that there is something like 29,000 students here. That number doesn’t surprise me at all, when you see everyone around campus. The main theme throughout campus is the Tower. One of the oldest buildings on campus is Tower hall. Our student cards are called Tower cards, and are our ticket to everything including free travel on the light rail and busses in the “Valley” area and our meal pass to D.C. (Dining commons). We even have money on our cards to spend at the food places on campus including Subway, Starbucks, Village market (like a small convenience store) and many more.

Classes are OK, but I’ve only had one week thus far, which was mainly going through the “green sheet” (course outline) and syllabus and a bit of work. The professors are pretty good and seem really excited to have me here. I introduced myself to one of my professors, Dr. Pendleton, half way through class during the 10 minute break, I got as far as “Hi, I just wanted to introduce myself my name is Michelle and I’m an Ex…..” it was at this point that she realized that I was “the exchange student from Australia”. She told me that she was going to have words to me about missing class yesterday (a class that I am not doing but the rest of the people in that class are doing) now realizing that I am not doing that class. When the rest of the class came back Dr. Pendleton told the class off (in a matter of speaking) because there was a student in the class that nobody recognized, but nobody said anything, then pointing at me she introduced me to everyone. For those who are not up-to-date with editors of books, Dr. Pendleton is the co-editor of Pedretti’s 6^th ed.

I had another class this morning with Professor Smith and I got to say a few words of introduction to all the students. Professor Smith was saying we’ve got a new person in the class that I’m assuming none of you know, but I’ll let her introduce herself. Professor Smith said she’d like me to do a talk about our program at UWS and the differences between the programs etc, oh and about fieldwork differences too. So if I start asking people random questions about UWS that I already know, I might just be gathering another perspective.

“The City of San Jose is [supposedly] one of the safest large cities in the USA”, we heard this on one of our first days…. Then the Bank of America was robbed! So what we now hear is its one of the safest cities, but it is still a city. There is a police station on Campus and all around campus is blue poles which have emergency contact with the police. I don’t know whether they make me feel safer or not?!?

I am staying here at the I-house (International house) which is great. We’ve been off the San Francisco the other weekend (more than 40 of us using public transport) and we discovered some new places on our minor detours (getting slightly lost, but always in the right direction!). It’s a great community here, everyone looks out for each other and tries to involve everyone in everything.

The weather here is really warm, it has been in the low 30’s every day and there is no air conditioning in the house, so we either head to the pools or stay in the basement when we are not attending class. I no longer have problems with the money, its weird when money starts making sense, especially American money! The only thing that strikes me as hugely different is talking to the professors. Titles are very important here. There are few people who are on first name basis with students, for the rest it is professor or Dr. and you have to remember who has what title! I much prefer our system! Luckily I haven’t really stuffed up yet…

Anyways that’s Kind of a breakdown of my trip so far… who knows when the next one will be…

-Michelle

Gallery: San Jose

michelle_grigg — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:30:00 GMT

Orientation

michelle_grigg — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:03:00 GMT

Orientation
We recently had our orientation here at the I-house and played some interesting activities. The one that sticks out in my mind is the one where we had to sort ourselves into east and west hemispheres .
At first I stood in the middle, because as bad as it sounds I couldn’t remember if in Australia we were in the east or west hemisphere. So I stood there and asked “where do I fit?” Everyone else had no problems so I looked around and saw that England and USA we in the west so I figured that Australia must be in the East, with Japan, yes this sounded about right, we are in the Asian soccer federation after all! During this time the director of the house Leann told me I had to decided which side to stand on- which kind of threw me, I thought we were talking geography! So I moved to the Eastern side of the room.
It was at this point that I was surprised about something I didn’t think about, I was the only non Asian on the eastern side. I wish I had got a photo it was hilarious! Leann said that she was surprised by my choice but she understood. I think if she hadn’t said hemisphere and instead said cultures I would have been less in decisive.
This night will also stay in my mind as the night I stayed up til 4 am with one VERY drunk Japanese girl named Yuka. “I’m not drunk!”, “Michelle I love you, you are my boy friend!”

I like to go a wondering along a mountain path

michelle_grigg — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:44:00 GMT

We’ve all heard the song surely from those ads of TV...

I love to go a-wandering along the mountain path.

And as I go, I love to sing,

My knapsack on my back.

Valdari, valdara, valdari, valdara ha ha ha ha ha ha,

Valdari, valdara, my knapsack on my back.

Well that is all I could think of when I was wondering around some magnificent but very different mountains... Firstly I speak of Mt Rainer... 14,410 ft tall, commanding, radiant memorizing. This mountain can be seen from the air as you come in to Seattle it also can be seen from the tall structures in Seattle such as the space needle, when the weather is clear.

Mt Rainer and the mountains surrounding it are soooo beautiful... I feel miles away from home (ok... please no one point out the obvious...). I could have just stood there for hours. It is of course covered in snow as are many of the other mountains yet where we stood we had wild flowers and bushy trees and lakes all around (remember its summer here). Another cool thing to do was look at the mountain using binoculars. We were in fact able to see dots moving down the mountain, you had to strain even with these visual aides to spot the climbers making their gradual decent over the glaciers and down the snow, we could even spot the path that they were following as it zig zagged down the mountain... Honestly I could have sat there all day with no one else around and felt total completeness.

In stark contrast the next day we visited Mt. St Helens, this is the mountain, for those who don't know, blew its top, killed 56 people, of whom, the infamous Harry J Truman was one... refusing to leave his resort as he believed this was a plot by the government to get his land... also a scientist named Johnson, whom the adjacent ridge is now named after who’s last words were (and these were heard on a recording that I watched at the center) were " VANCOUVER VANCOUVER THIS IS IT!". Johnson was a scientist monitoring the mountain. The mountain had bulged 150 m from its original size by the time it blew and when it did it created a big mess... shearing trees from the roots, knocking those further away over, and those even further stripped them of all life... it cause a massive landslide, massive mudslides which lasted several hours... cause bits of mountain or hummocks to be thrown miles from the mountain... ash blew to the north east of the state and cause night time conditions at 11am in the morning.....

The mountains included in the national volcanic monument are still very bare although 25yrs on life is returning... I tell you what... I’m glad I wasn’t there. Mt St Helens (like Mt Rainer) is still active and I did see smoke coming out of it. Mt Rainer is bigger than Mt St Helens and when it blows... I hope I am long gone (Like St Helens scientist believe they will be able to forecast it, but you never really can be sure when it comes to mother natures fury!)

So although I have had 2 days in the mountains I believe they can not be compared. They were two very different experiences and provoked very different feelings...

I'll add to this with pictures and more description when I get my own computer... this will have to do for now...