First Dorm Entry

This is actually the first entry for this blog that I will be writing from my dorm room. Even a year ago, back before I went to Mainz and I wrote my "counting-down-the-days-til-I-go" entries, those were all from home. But now I'm back in the eucalyptus-covered Mills campus, sitting in the same folding sphere chair (looks like this, but green instead!) which was nicknamed the Taco Chair first year because of how it looks when it's folded up. Next door is the same friend that I've had over all four years here - my friend group here has waxed and waned over the years, and she's the only one who has been a constant for me. It's been fantastic to see her again!

However, aside from nostalgic comments about chairs and friends, reentry to California and US post-secondary education has been slightly turbulent to say the least. I think culture shock - particularly reverse culture shock - is something that is hard to identify at first. It takes a while for us to see it because we don't expect to - and even when the thought crosses your mind of "oh, maybe I'm going through some culture shock..." it takes at least another day after that to realize just how many of the things you are thinking and feeling stemmed from exactly that.

It is hard to feel like a stranger in a place where you also feel like a member of the family. I do mean the Mills family here, and though I don't feel particularly connected to my graduating class the way some college students do, I feel definitely a part of the family created by the professors, my friends, the buildings, the attitudes, those eucalyptus trees and the paths that weave their way around campus. But now I walk on those paths and feel like I'm walking through my elementary school as a high school student - people don't recognize me (I got slimmer, my hair got longer and is no longer red, my clothes are slightly different, and some people swear I got taller -- that just proves everything the conservatives have been pushing for! Hanging around tall people makes you tall, in exactly the way that hanging around gay people makes you gay...) and I don't recognize how things are done here anymore. I felt extremely uncomfortable in my very first class where there were about 30 students and the professor not only commented on how big a class that was but also tried to make eye contact with us and interact!

But you make adjustments. The biggest thing when going through this reverse culture shock is, very simply, to not freak out. I am in the situation that I think others also find themselves in after time abroad that truly connects them to where they were -- both cultures, both places are immensely important to me. I don't want to lose my Americanness, but I also don't want to lose the Germanness I acquired during this year. As C told me a few days ago during a particularly rough spell of reverse culture shock, "Isn't it nice that you feel so strange when you're back because that means that you really did come into the other culture when you were there?"

And it is.

So, after the first two days of classes, my mind and emotions have calmed down a bit. I know where I was last year, I know how important it was to me- but I also know where I am now and what this year means to me. I breathe in those moments when I feel like I don't possibly fit in, and I remind myself that I actually do. I have the immense pleasure and privilege of being able to feel comfortable in both places, if I just give it time.

So after all that jazz got cleared up, the more real issue started. I have two more semesters of school. Of American school. Now, my math classes in Mainz were without a doubt harder than any math class I will take here. However, for those classes, homework is only due once a week, and there is only one exam. That exam is *&^%!** hard, but there's only one of it. Now back here, homework in a math class is due three days a week, there are three exams over the course of the semester and then a final exam. The material is not as horrendously difficult as the classes in Mainz, but during the semester itself, you are doing more work. My non-math classes in Mainz only met once a week and the only homework was the final paper, and you could work on that throughout the semester.  That was a lovely change.

Now I'm back here and things are different! My math class here (Abstract Algebra) is not the thing that worries me. It's the other classes where I have reading and writing assignments due every week. I'm not what you would call a fast reader, especially when you want me to actually understand all of what I'm reading. Then add a bit more time when it's an academic text I'm reading. I refuse to sit here and write that I am worried about getting through the reading for all of my classes until I have actually attempted it for a full week and see how it goes.

Now, that leaves one issue unaddressed. The last thing I need to "get off my chest" here, as it were, is the fact that I still don't know exactly what I'm taking.  I'm signed up for two classes that I must take (Abstract Algebra and Race, Sexuality, and the State - fulfilling my Women and Gender Studies requirement) and then, right now, for three from which I must choose two: Film Music, Stylistic History of Cinema, and Java Enterprise Edition (a programming course). 

Initially, I was only signed up for the two courses relating to film (purely by accident). I was trying to choose classes in time slots that would allow me to take a course at UC Berkeley this semester, but that plan fell through. I was planning the whole time on dropping Film Music in order to take that Berkeley class - but since there is no Berkeley class, I went to Film Music yesterday. I haven't had that much fun in one day of class since Real Analysis. :)

The professor is English and we spent the hour and fifteen minutes first talking about the kinds of things music can do in films and then for a good hour, listening to chunks of music (about 3-5 minutes) from the scores of films and describing what we thought was going on, based on the music. I was astounded at the things that our brains are coded to read from music and how well we can be manipulated by it. Some of the music was from movies some of us knew - from Psycho, for instance *shiver* - but most of it was from other films, and we got everything down to a T. From two minutes of music, we knew there was a drunken man with a heavy past wandering alone in the desert of the western United States. It was SO much fun, and I can't wait to hear what comes in the class next.

The problem is, I also went to this Java class yesterday - to see if what I had in Germany had prepared me enough for the class here. Java Enterprise Edition (EE for short) is used for websites such as amazon, where the website must access and control a very expansive database but also needs to have a user-friendly front, such as the visual stuff a user sees on the Amazon website. There is the upper level of mostly HTML-coded website that all users see: putting things in the cart or on the wishlist, putting comments on items, getting recommendations, etc. But then there's the massive database underneath it all that stores all the user information and their purchase information, all the items and their ratings and their comments and the connections between users and those certain purchased or viewed items, etc. Java EE is a programming language that is often used in that situation to communicate between what goes on on the surface (the pretty website) and what happens backstage (the database). The professor is new, the people are fun (some are people I always hoped I would take a class with again but we never managed to overlap), and I was SO interested in the material. But with my (limited) background in Java, I'm not sure whether I'll be able to make it. Which would seem like a reason to help my decision of cutting the three courses down to two, but not quite!

Because the other film class is also really interesting! I've been to a few of this professor's classes before since my friends have taken it. Not only is it interesting, but you watch good movies and I know that if I keep up with the reading, etc, I will do fine in the class. I'm not sure if that's the case with my Java course. But I really want to learn what they will learn in the Java course!

Basically, I'm stuck. I told the Java professor what my situation was and she encouraged me to register and stay in the class for the first few weeks where they will be doing a Java review and just to see if I feel like it's over my head or not. And I think I'll do that. Now, that means that for the first few weeks I'll be doing the workload for five upper level courses, but I should be able to manage. Right? Right.

But before I get started on that mountain of reading for the week, it's breakfast time. It's been lovely catching up!

P.S. I think my blog has strange ideas about when these entries are posted. Ignore those! It is 9:30 in the morning right now, not whatever strange time the internet decides to put next to this post.