Jazz festival and homework

I have only completed one full week of school here which means that not only do I not have a lot of homework, but I don't have a lot to worry about in terms of work load or tests or anything like that because we've only just begun and the closest major assignment isn't for another 3 weeks. SO instead I've just been exploring Wellington before I don't have this freedom anymore. This weekend was really great and Sunday was just the end to a very good weekend. Stephen, Chris, Morgan and I all went to a Maori lunch. They served "hangi" which is a traditional Maori meal and it was at a traditional Maori hut with live music. Although it was really cool to get involved in some cultural immersion, Chris put it rather well that it this was the "awkward cultural gathering I've been looking for!" We stayed long enough to eat our food and enjoy some of the music but then we all headed down for Wellington's jazz festival.

The funny thing about jazz is that I usually do not like it at all, but when just chilling with friends in a park or boardwalk, it was the perfect background noise. The square it was held in was busting at the seams with people. We spent a good amount of time by the water. I was looking for stingrays that Stephen claimed to have seen earlier while everyone else just lay basking in the sun. Then we moved to a shady area (to avoid sunburn despite wearing sunscreen) and just enjoyed each others company.

But, I do have my priorities and when dinner time rolled around I had to make my way back to Stafford to do homework. Everyone else but me and Chris had decided to go see Slumdog Millionaire so we had a homework party together. I made pasta and together we read/worked for a good 4 hours with breaks to have philosophical discussions about the religion papers that I was reading. It was refreshing to get back into the swing of things with school work, but also frustrating because a lot of the times I wanted to reference my work from Mt.Holyoke and all of that is back at home in Montclair. Wikipedia will have to suffice for refreshing my memory of things.

Let me explain some of the differences University in NZ has from schools in the states.
First of all because it is on a trimester schedule, the classes are kind of "quick and dirty." They're shorter but packed full of dense information. In order to compensate for the fact that they might not have enough time to teach the material, every class you take in Uni (the short term for University here) has an accompanying tutorial or lab. This means that if I am taking 4 classes that I have 4 supplementary classes which are smaller, discussion based, or labs. I can't tell you how frustrating this system is because all the tutorials have time conflicts with each other and also it means that instead of taking one or two classes a day, I'm taking 4 or 5. Additionally, although they hand out syllabi, they're not very comprehensive and do not list the assignments they wish to be completed by a certain day. Everything is sort of left up to you. They have this policy of "do it on your own time" but then they say things like "if you don't do the readings, you'll fail." So you have to figure out what they mean, do light reading or do a thorough job. Who knows. The kiwi way is to be laid back about these sort of things, so it makes sense that a lot of times the readings are "recommended" but it is extremely frustrating to not have any motivation to complete the readings other than the fact that it would benefit me but it's not necessary for my completion of the course.

As for my classes, I like 3 out of the 4 that I'm taking and I'm considering taking only 3 (if I get Mt.Holyoke's approval.)
My religion class is great. It's a 100 level and It meets once a week and has different levels of psychology, philosophy, and religion mixed together. It's taught by a professor from Buffalo, NY who seems to be incredibly intelligent and an easy going guy. This, I predict, will be my favorite class. It is also the homework I was doing tonight which sparked a lot of philosophical conversations with Chris.
My social psychology class is also pretty great. It's a 300 level (which is technically their senior year level classes) and It's all about how we fit into society with our differing cultures and personalities and morals. The most recent class we talked about free will, which I didn't think would come up in a psychology class. I felt way more prepared than anyone else in the class who had never heard of Spinoza. Further, the professor is this really quirky elderly Kiwi who seems to have the whole absentminded professor thing down pretty well.
The other class that I've just enrolled in is a sociology class. I chose to take this because I've never taken a sociology class and I figured I might find something interesting in it if I'm taking a social psych class and a religion class, both which have to do with human behavior in context of culture and interactions. It's a 100 level course and due to my background in psychology and philosophy I feel already super prepared for this class.
The last class, and the one I'm considering dropping, is a 300 level psych course about memory. I find the topic immensely interesting and was excited the most about this course when I first signed up for it, but the professor is literally the devil. She's some sassy hard-ass american woman who thinks she's the hottest thing since sliced bread. In all honesty I don't know how this woman came to think so highly of herself. On the first day of class she put on this blues album and wrote on the overhead projector "to better your education." Then she proceeded to shout out about how she didn't expect us to do anything on the first day of class and then had us leave after we filled out a form about which tutorial we wanted to enroll in. The next class was AWFUL. She went on a long rant about how she didn't tolerate bad students. She said "if you don't do the reading, you will fail. If you don't come to class, you will fail. If you don't pay attention during class, you will fail." Then she talked about how she didn't expect us to come to class, that it wasn't required. She made a huge deal about this and about how it's all up to us. We're the ones paying, therefore we should dictate when to come to class. Obviously she's trying to play some sort of psychologist mindgame of guilting everyone to come to class. Then, this was the worst, she literally yelled about how she hates lateness. She said she had no tolerance for students who came in late and said "if you plan on being late, you should plan on just not coming to class. If you want in late, I will stop class and watch you until you sit down. This should thoroughly embarrass you enough to never come late to class again, SO DON'T DO IT." And she was serious about this. The next and most recent class a student came in literally 2 minutes late. She had just begun lecture and he rushed in and grabbed a seat as quietly as possible. As he made his way up to stairs, the professor stopped talking, crossed her arms and watched him and he searched for am empty seat in the large lecture hall. She watched as he made his way and sat down, redfaced, and pulled out a notebook. Then she had a TA take over the teaching of the class and made her way over to this poor student (he happened to be sitting in front of me) and whispered, in a very disapproving tone, into his ear. She asked him if he had heard what she said about her lateness policy and if he realized what he had done. She then told him never to come late to her class again or else she'd personally kick him out of the class. I don't know what is wrong with this woman. At first I thought she was just kind of quirky and had a funny way about doing things but I honestly just think she's a really bitter, possibly scorned, woman. I had this notion in my head that I'd challenge myself to deal with her and maybe I'd end up really looking up to her, but I don't think I had handle her much longer. If she ever gives me any sort of grief I might end up lashing out on her. No one deserves to be spoken to like that, especially on only the 3rd day of class. I have no respect for this woman and find it hard to learn from someone I disdain.


ANYWAY. I should finish my reading and go to bed. I have to wake up somewhat early and I feel a bit exhausted from all the sun I got today.