Life as a grad student is weird…

So week 2 of proper classes continues, and I’m getting used to some of the weird stuff that occurs here at SFSU.

Rather than keep mentioning them randomly, these are my top 5:

1. The tails. On the bags. Real tails. I don’t know why either. It feels like every other female on campus has got a tail hanging out of the end of her bag. It looks like they are all carrying round the decomposing corpse of a raccoon in their bag. Sick. (and not in a good way).

2. The mini dogs. The yapping. The carrying. The annoyance. Those of you who know me will know that I have very little patience for dogs that easily get squashed underfoot. Get a real dog not an oversized rat. There are millions of these on campus. Dressed in the school colours. Cut it out. You are NOT in legally blonde.

3. Greek life. Fraternities. Sororities. Teenagers in matching hoodies. I know the Greek tradition at American universities is longstanding. I had to ask what they actually did yesterday and the response was ‘they are good for building networks and we do community work’. She then turned round and started shouting through a megaphone about how they were the most sociable sorority to join. Jokes about community work not needed thank you.

4. It’s bloody freezing here compared to at our house! I can be sweating in Portrero Hill and freezing my knackers off at  uni. As a consequence of which I’m dressed like a bag lady most days for the additional warmth of the layers. Not weird stuff at SFSU but a pain in the arse nonetheless. Even though this picture has blue skies don’t let it fool you. Literally brass monkeys.

5. The short term memory. The association. The feeling like you own the place. I know that whenever you get to a new stage of academic life they tell you that this one is the most important. And it feels so. And this is still the case. My undergraduate degree doesn’t mean much (as in no-one cares about it) and I’m loving being a grumpy old graduate student. Bring on the cheese and wine nights!

And this last picture is the latest of a long line of enthusiastic but badly spelt graffiti. I love the sentiment displayed in the ladies in our department. Worrying at university level to be spelling things wrong like this… It’s like tattooing, use a bloody spell checker!

Laters alligators…