Week three. Taking a breather.

The last three weeks have been hectic. I will never complain about Telebears (berkeley's online class registration system) ever again. Telebears is to eating ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry on top, as U of Ghana's system is to eating cement.

It essentially went something like this:

You must personally go to each department you are interested in, find the time table (the class schedule), and manually register by submitting a form with your passport picture. Typically, students here only take classes within their major department so they only register at one or two departments and voila. done. However, it's not so easy for international students because we tend to take classes from different departments, so we have to run all over campus during registration.

I was super stoked about starting school, but i soon discovered most students don't even show up for classes on the first week of school...and neither do professors! Only the naive foreigners and freshmen show up for class on week one. =P

The add/drop deadline was last friday, and I was told it can be a pretty insane process as well. And indeed it is. Most departments are chill and do it the informal style where you simply add or cross your name off from the roster (this means going back to each department and manually doing all this of course). But...for some unknown reason...the performing arts department makes students add and drop the formal way. This entails a few steps:

1) pick up add/drop form at the Dean's office

2) bring form to the department and have the head sign it

3) bring signed form back to dean's office so they can sign it

4) pick up the form from the dean's office in three days

5) bring signed form back to the department

Unfortunately, the performing arts dept is on the exact opposite end of campus to the dean's office (Story of my life! The distance between Cal's music department and most of my public health classes? Opposite corners of campus.) Well, let's just say...the bus drivers and bus money collectors know my face very well.

Additionally, I must submit two forms of my registered classes to the study abroad center, and register online.

I ran into a whole lot of bumps during the entire process. I am SO relieved to be done. WHEW! What an adventure! With all that said, here is what I'm taking this semester.

1. African drumming

2. African xylophone

3. Working with persons with HIV/AIDS

4. Women and children's rights and protection

5. Personality development and behavior disorders (not super related to public health...but sorta my last minute add when my medical social work class got cancelled on the day of the add/drop deadline because the professor refused to show up due to some funding complaint. Ironically enough, the professor for personality development just announced yesterday that he is not teaching it anymore because the school isn't paying for his transportation costs! Luckily another lecturer will replace him.)

6. Twi (the local dialect here)

I'm really excited about these classes. The music classes are great. I hope to lug a custom-made drum back to the States. My social work classes are super interesting too. It's gonna be an awesome semester.

PICTURES

here's my xylophone class. The special class for Obruni's (White people/foreigners).

And to appease the 'rents, who say I never post pictures of myself, here is one of me on xylophone.

Gotta get some rest for four hours straight of xylophone and drumming! =)