First Days of Classes

Wednesday marked the first day of school here at Lingnan University. It was weird being here for 2 weeks without having to worry about classes and that fun thing called homework, but once Wednesday rolled around, I was ready.

My first class, International Politics, started at 11:30 in what they call the ‘Main Building.’ My second class, Media Ethics, started at 3:30 and was also in the Main Building; coincidently, the two classrooms were right next to each other. So being myself, I left my room at 11- giving myself PLENTY of time to find the room. At 11:20 I went into room #10; I was the first to arrive and I sat down in the middle of the room.

11:25.

11:27. Okay. Where is everybody.

11:29. This is odd. Maybe this is actually a tutorial (more on those later) and I don’t have class till tomorrow?

11:30. Well I could go to OMIP and turn in my hostel fee, email the professor saying nobody showed up except me, get lunch, get my student Octupus card….

11:35. Still nobody.

11:36. SHOOT. I’m in the wrong room. Yep. I mixed up the rooms for International Politics and Media Ethics. So I go outside and look into the International Politics room. The professor is already lecturing, and it looks like the only empty seats are in the front. Fabulous. But lo and behold another girl runs up behind me and basically pushes me into the room, where we both awkwardly got the syllabus from the professor and struggled to get past this girl into the front row.

The professor talked for a while- the usual first day of class stuff: syllabus, aims and expectations, books, exams, etc. The class seems interesting- something different from the rest of my courses. Since I’ve arrived in HK I’ve been thinking as working as a foreign officer so I decided to take a politics course to test the waters in this area.

The class got out early and I went to the Canteen with a few other international/exchange kids from the class.  The Canteen: what an experience. it was so hectic, there was a huge line and all these screens with different options at different station and nobody really knew what was going on. I ordered sweet and sour chicken with rice- I figured it was a safe option- but when I got to the station they were out of the chicken so they gave me beef. It sufficed.

I didn’t do much in between lunch and Media Ethics- I think I napped? But I was early and in the correct room for Media Ethics! I’m anxious to see how this class goes throughout the semester. First of all, my professor is Chinese. At the beginning of class she asked how many people don’t understand Cantonese; two of raised our hands. Her English is very good, but she frequently switched off between English and Cantonese. I am pretty sure she was just repeating everything in Cantonese and English, but I am still a little nervous that I’ll miss something huge. Media Ethics is a Service-Learning course where students can do a project within the community instead of attending tutorials. We had 2 guests come and explain the projects offered- it’s a lot of interviewing and producing brochures about different lifestyles. It seems very interesting. The speakers spoke in Cantonese though, so the professor and another girl were translating for me and the other non-Cantonese speaker.

My next and final class for the day was Visual Culture and Digital Media. It will look at the critical issues surrounding digital media. I can already tell that I will be able to make connects not only between the classes I am taking here but also with some of the classes I have taken at HWS- like Rhetorical Bytes. One of the requirements for this class is to maintain a blog throughout the semester, so if you are interested here’s another blog from yours truly: http://smhvisualculturedesignmedia.blogspot.com/

I had one class today, Non-fiction Film, but it is broken up into 2 time slots. In the morning slot the professor gave the usual first day spiel, and in the second evening slot we watched the first of many documentaries, “Born into Brothels.” It was a very moving film about children who are born and grow up in brothels in Calcutta, India. The filmmaker, Zara Briski used photography as a means to educate these young kids and to ultimately get them out of the brothels and into schools.

I am done with classes now until Tuesday night! I worked out my schedule so I have Fridays and Mondays off, and Tuesday I only have one class at 5:30.  Tuesday night I have Media, Culture and Society, so we shall see how that goes.