Things I learned at my orientation today:

• they have a Womyn’s Institute
• there’s a fee inside your tuition that gives you a complete public transit pass for Ottawa during the school year - something like half of what you’d have to pay going to school and coming home, except you can go anywhere ever, whenever you want
• there’s a fee inside your tuition that gives you complete access to all their sports facilities, including yoga, pilates, and martial arts classes, as well as two gyms, a dedicated cardio room, a large pool, squash courts, etc.
• they have like 7 places to eat, including a food court (A&W, Subway, Pizza Pizza, stuff like that), at least one dining service area - I’m under the impression that there is at least one other - where chefs stand in front of you and prepare everything from grilled cheese sandwiches to stir fry to pizzas to whatever your favourite ethnic specialty food happens to be - Chinese and Indian style meals were on offer today, a cafe inside the library (kinda like the Starbucks in Chapters, only on steroids), and a full service restaurant (waiters, menus, the whole deal)
• they have a book store that will not only buy back your books, but is now offering book rentals for about 50% of new retail price - you sign a contract promising to return the book a few days after your final - which may be a loss if you’re a good used book salesman, but otherwise everyone wins
• they have lecture theatres that… you may not believe this… STILL HAVE CHALKBOARDS IN THEM. I realize that with a much larger facility than my high school, it would be very expensive to update them, but like, chalkboards… and then slideshows… SmartBoards were invented specifically to combine these things into one beauteous creature
• they recycle pretty much everything for you, from batteries to empty printer cartridges, and then they actually use these things - I saw an LCD monitor made from what must have been the recycled remains of an old white CRT monitor, because there’s no way it was originally made that way
• after two years there, you can go on an exchange for one (or both) semester(s) to pretty much everywhere ever - perhaps I shall go see the world
• our school colours are red with black, which is unfortunate because I actually own no red clothing, but I own plenty of black - as far as I can tell red is the social stuff and black is the serious academic stuff? seemed to me like the fun things were red and the academic stuff was black, anyhow, so I guess that’s appropriate
• they have a computer science degree focusing on social networking and social games

Things I experienced worth noting:

• there will be a lot of exchange/international/whatever students, like seriously a lot
• there will be a crazy large amount of people in general, which is to say that people with all kinds of interests will be available to agree with you or simply be attractive
• I shared the empty spots at my table with a girl and her mom, the latter of which joked that she would e-mail my mom to say I had met at least one person
• I met an ex-Polish guy wearing a Rush t-shirt named Conred (pronounced Conrad of course) who assured me that the Polish are terrible, embarrassing people
• I really wanted some pizza for lunch but like there was nothing disgusting and unhealthy like that, although I did manage to find some french fries and had some cookies for desert

Yeah so I dunno that’s what I did today. I’m not trying to promote stuff or say my university is better than yours, like I’m not some super excited school spirit guy or anything. I guess I accidentally promised (more like sarcastically humoured the request) to go do Fall Orientation, for a cost of $75, which is called C U (Carleton University, get it) At The Circus and I have zero interest in that, especially since I live off-campus. And so my mom paid for that already and now I feel guiltily obligated to go and not enjoy myself. Allegedly it’s all non-drinking, which is to say they won’t be providing drinks, but that’s not much of a guarantee that nobody will be drunk. As far as I can tell I accidentally made my mom pay $75 for these things (go to the events thing) and like I might go see a good movie if they were going to something good. I don’t really want to go to the beach and not be with anybody or go to a concert if there’s nobody I want to see, and the rest is so un-noteworthy to my mind I won’t even declare my non-interest in them.

        Academic orientation will be useful, although I would have assumed that was for everyone? Carleton Complete may or may not also be informative, likewise with Expo Carleton. According to their “why should I bother” section of the FAQ Carleton Complete will make me a brilliant success so it had better be worth $75 alongside the academic orientation. Actually, I don’t care about the money even if I have to give my own money to my mom. Expo Carleton could possibly be a showcase of thing people from the university have done, as I know for example that we have our own art gallery somewhere.

        I’m not hellbent on being boring and not meeting anyone, don’t get me wrong, I just look at this list of events and feel very disinterested. Turned off, even, and I’m sure I don’t need to explain that. Of course I’ll go out and do things that interest me, if I know they exist and can find my way there. That’s why I’m going to go see The Holly Springs Disaster next saturday. I’m not worried about being awkward and out of place there, because I’ll enjoy the event regardless of my locally friendless state. I can only hope that my charmingly polite attitude and witty banter will charm people taking the same classes as I am, though they may not necessarily share all of my classes because of my wonky degree. Thus far, this is the only way I know how to meet people. Its effectiveness is yet to be determined.

        Oh, slight caveat: each of our classes seems to have a discussion board or something for the students in the class to get information from their teacher and make plans to study together and discuss material and whatever, where I know all kinds of things about being awesome and befriending people. I knew my years of lurking would be good for something in university!