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Wednesday July 9, 1998
"Now I want you to take form A-dash-seven-oh-one out of your registration package," the designated orientation volunteer screams into the microphone. Someone needs to remind her that the mike generally eliminates the need for shouting but until then, all of us frosh must deal with the piercing feedback.
"If you have a blue sticker in the top right hand corner, then you go to line B-one. If the sticker is red, go to line B-four," she instructs.
I shuffle to line B-one along with thousands of others. I eavesdrop on the conversation behind me.
"So my brother says this one guy he went to school with didn't go to registration and he spent the next four years there and they didn't have one single record that he went to that school. He had to do it all over again. 8 years of his life-gone. All because he didn't go to first year registration. Can you imagine?"
I tune them out. Registration stinks.
By the time I get back to my room in rez, it's passed noon. I wasted half the day waiting in line, even though I got there a half hour earlier then I was supposed to.
Lesson #1: lines at university are a way of life and generally there's no way to avoid them. Try it. Come early. Come late. Don't come at all. Eventually there will be an hour long line with your name on it.
My roommate is lying on her bed crying. She doesn't even try to stop when I walk in, she just looks up at me with tears streaming down her face. She broke up with her boyfriend of 31/2 years a few days ago. Well, more accurately, he broke up with her. Technically dumped her on her ass. She's been crying for days.
"You're back already?" she sniffles, "I'm sorry I didn't go with you, I just didn't feel up to it, y'know?"
She never feels up to anything. Eating. Getting dressed. And, even on occasion, showering. I put a stop to that real quick.
"Derrick called," she whimpers at me. She waits for my reaction.
I feign an expression of shock and disbelief, "What'd he say?"
Derrick is the ex in question.
She shakes her head at me, "He hung up." She stops to blow her nose, "But I know it was him."
I resist the urge to smack her and decide to check the frosh itinerary for the day, "Hey, there's a barbecue on the east soccer field right now. Let's go."
She waves her tear-stained Kleenex at me, "You go ahead, I don't really feel up to it."
I stare at her. My best friend from high school goes to Laurier. She hit it off with her roommate the second she met her. They're all but planning each other's weddings by now. The irony of the situation doesn't escape me. My best friend didn't even want to go to university.
"You've been sitting in this room for days. I'm sick of doing stuff by myself. Let's go," I order her, finally fed up.
"But if he calls-"
"Then he'll leave a message like regular people," I finish for her, "Now put on some shoes."
She slips on a pair of moccasins. I kind of stare at her feet. I mean, moccasins? Who wears those? I shrug it off, at least she's out of bed. And after all, she's from a small town. Maybe that's what they wear. I look down at my own attire. Torn jogging pants with blue paint on the knees and grass stains on the butt. A faded Chicago Bulls t-shirt. My brother's baseball cap turned to the back. Well, it's only a barbeque. No need to change.
Lesson # 2: you will forget how to dress yourself upon entering your first year of university, and will spend the next four years trying to remember. Remember in high school, when you'd wake up 2 hours early to blow dry your hair and put on makeup? And everything was Tommy Hilfiger this and Nike that. Those days are gone. Dawn comes pretty early when you've been up till 3 am playing drinking games with some people on your floor. And when you roll out of bed at twenty after eight to make it to an eight-thirty class, you'll be lucky if you remember a pencil let alone a clean shirt. At one point you will go to class in your pajamas, or better yet, the clothes you wore the day before. Invest in a good hat because, as it turns out, everyday is a bad hair day.
Not only do I convince my roommate to go to the barbeque, but also to come to the cafeteria with a bunch of the people from our floor too. She picks at her salad. I wolf down my plate of pasta in alfredo sauce, gulp down two glasses of whole milk and eat two helpings of chocolate mouse for dessert. Food was never like this at my parents' house. And with the meal card it's almost like it's free. I grab a bag of chips and some chocolate to take back up to my room. Just in case I get hungry.
Lesson #3: it's called the Frosh Fifteen for a reason. You'll easily gain fifteen pounds in your first year. You won't really notice until the summer when none of your shorts fit and your swimsuit seems like a cruel joke. But don't sweat it. Think of it instead as a right of passage. You can say "I ate pizza and beer for breakfast for a week straight. I am truly a university student." You'll have the gut to prove it. But before you sign up for Jenny Craig, bear in mind: everyone looks as bad as you. Just put on the hat from Lesson #2. No one'll even notice.
After dinner in the caf�, we go over to a different rez and play more drinking games with some people we met at the barbeque for a few hours. There's this really cute guy there who doesn't seem to notice I exist. So naturally I spend the night trying to get him to notice me. I try not to get too drunk-Calculus at 8:30 tomorrow morning. Everyone keeps saying how hard it is but I'm not really too worried. Not everyone had my solid A average coming out of OAC (not to be conceited or anything).
Lesson #4: you are just the same as everyone else. If you had an A average coming into university, so did everyone else. Otherwise they wouldn't be there right? If you hear a course is hard, chances are it is. Don't let your scholastic achievements, scholarships or bursaries go to your head.
By 2 am it's obvious to me that the cute guy isn't going to get interested so I decided to call it a night. He must be gay. And he's not really that cute anyway. My roommate decides to stay. She doesn't have class till noon. Lucky arts students.
The next morning I'm hung over, so in addition to my backwards baseball cap I wear sunglasses to class.
My prof is insane. He wears a cape to class. And carries his notes in a green plastic bag. The rest of my class seems to accept this without batting an eye. He tells us there are 600 people enrolled in the course but only 336 in this time slot. The lecture hall is huge, which is pretty intimidating, so I sit near the front.
"How many of you had 80% or more in OAC Calculus?" he asks.
Everyone, including me, raises his or her hand, triumphantly.
"How many of you expect to get 80% or more in this class?"
Again, all hands reach for the sky.
He smiles cynically at us.
Lesson #5: expect a 10-12% decrease in your average even if you got all A's in high school. That's why they call it higher learning. If it were like high school they'd call it High school version 1.2. Don't sweat this either, like the Frosh Fifteen, it's expected. Just don't flunk out.
"Take a good look at the person sitting next to you on both sides," he pauses while we take a look, "Chances are by Christmas they won't be there. Now don't panic. I'm going to tell you how to pass this and every other course you take in university. Write this down."
He goes to the board, "Number one. Go to class. Don't say you'll get the notes from someone else. You won't. If you don't go to class you will fail.
(Lesson #6: a bit of an exaggeration but not by much. Sure, no one takes attendance like in high school, so it's your prerogative if you want to skip class or not. But bear in mind that the reason they don't take attendance is because no one cares if you pass or fail. It's your 40 grand. Don't waste it. Go to every class. Even the optional review classes.)
"Number two. Come prepared to learn. If you roll in here late, sit way in the back and sleep for the whole class then you may as well not be here. Bring pencils. Paper. A cup of coffee. But most importantly, bring your brain."
I sigh, annoyed. Well, duh. He hasn't told me anything I don't already know.
"Number three. Do the homework. All of it. Every assignment, all practice exams. Number four. Ask questions. If you don't get it right away, you won't magically figure it out the night before the exam. If you don't know how to do the work, you'll fail for sure."
He pauses for dramatic effect, "And lastly. Don't get discouraged. The average in this class is usually 62-68%. If you're in there, you're doing fine.
The class gasps, myself included. A C? Is he joking? That's fine?
Lesson #7: be prepared to get a C, a D, even an F. It happens. Don't beat yourself up over it. All marks are relative anyway. If you get a 55% on a test that the rest of the class got a 32% on, you're a genius. Apply for a scholarship. Just because you don't get A's and B's doesn't mean you're an idiot. They wouldn't let you in if they didn't think you could handle it.
My first day of university has changed my life. I'm not so cocky anymore. I could get a C. I'll probably pull and all-nighter studying for my Chemistry final. I'll get fat. Seems a little bleak, but it's nothing I can't handle. Before we leave my prof make a sick joke. He writes on the board in Calculus-talk:
lim BSc = x-mas graduate
"Any questions?" he asks.
GPA->0
Copyright 2000 Halima Thompson
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