Thursday was another day of firsts. I needed to talk to someone in the registrar's office about my lack of a study permit, coupled with my lack of proof of Canadian citizenship. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't gonna have problems starting school if I didn't have my study permit. At first, I planned to just go up on campus and ask someone, then got scared, and decided to call instead. I had the privilege of listening to the same message over and over while on hold, the kind that says, without actually saying it, "Please just hang up and go on the website. Please. We really don't want to talk to you. With all the technology available, and everything computerized, there's almost NO reason you need to talk to a live human being, so please hang up and go to www.ualberta.ca. Please."
Well, I'd already been to the registrar's page, and there was nothing related to my situation, i.e., What to Do If You Applied as an International Student, Then Found out You're Canadian, and Now Have No Study Permit and You're Waiting for Your Proof of Citizenship, so I stayed on the line.
When I finally got a live human being, she listened to my garbled explanation of my situation, then said, "We don't deal with graduate students here, you'll have to talk to FGSR (Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research)," and hung up. Thanks, anonymous phone lady.
So I hunted up the number for FGSR, and called them, which led to a similar message re: please just look on the website. But at least this time I got a menu option. After listening to the first four menu options, I finally got, "For other issues or questions, press 5" so I dutifully pressed 5 and waited. And waited. Stiiillllll waaaaiiiittttiiiinnngggg....hey, wait, what? Beep boop >buzzz< blip! [cell phone lights up to indicate the call ended].
I figured it was just a random glitch, so I called the number again, sat through the same "Look on the website, dummy!" message, got to the menu, pressed 5....and got the same random tones, right before I was hung up on AGAIN. There was no way to avoid it - I was gonna have to go up to campus, and since I needed to figure out the bus/LRT schedule anyway, that was my chosen mode of transportation.
Edmonton Transit Systems (ETS) has a very handy site where you plug in your start and endpoints, when you want to depart or arrive, and it gives you your trip options. Very helpful. So I got all my stuff together and strolled across the street to the bus stop to wait for the 40 Yellowbird at 2:12. Getting on the bus was no problem, but definitely felt weird, since before now the only time I've ridden a city bus was on vacation with a crew of family members. I nervously showed the bus driver my OneCard, because I wasn't sure if I needed to swipe it, or something. I don't - flashing it was enough, thankfully, because I'm sure if he'd really looked at it, he might've thought I stole a OneCard from a much toadier-looking person.
Getting on the LRT was also no big deal. I kept thinking I was gonna have to swipe my card at some point, or show it to a guard, but no. You just have it handy IN CASE someone asks - there are no turn styles, like DC or New York (the only experience with public transit I've had before now). So I boarded the train, and ended up sitting across from two girls who looked stereotypically Californian (fake blonde/streaked hair and orange tans), but had accents that were nearly Scottish, they were so thick. It was disconcerting.
I'd checked the position of the FGSR office on the map of campus on-line before leaving, so I thought I knew where to go. I was wrong, so very wrong! I turned left coming out of the LRT station, instead of right, and ended up walking around the HUB. The HUB is yooooooooggggeeeee. It's where international students are housed, it has a mall in the middle, and the LRT station underneath, and is about 5 city blocks long (no, that's not an exaggeration). So of course, I came out near one end, and walked along to the other end, because I thought the building I was trying to find was near that end.
And now, a few words about U of A's campus. It is very green. Lots of plants and trees and pathways among them, and a neat Geology garden full of huge, weird rocks that I wanted to climb over. Beautiful. Old, venerable-looking brick buildings with fancypants white trim, newer modern-looking glass and steel structures (some still being built). But among all of this nifty architecture and verdant landscaping, there was something missing....something off. After wandering around aimlessly for about 10 minutes, I finally put my finger on it. There were no FRICKIN' BUILDING SIGNS!!! I was used to BYU, where every building had a sign outside its main door telling you what the building was - "Joseph Smith Building", "Harris Fine Arts Center", "David O. McKay School of Education", etc. They don't do that here.
Once I realized that I was never going to find Triffo Hall if Triffo Hall didn't have a sign announcing its presence, I pulled out my phone and went to the on-line map. I even got a picture of the building in question. It was....made of bricks....with white trim...and there were some trees around it. It wasn't even a picture of the front entrance of the building, it was, like, a side, or something - no doors, only anonymous windows that looked like HALF the buildings ON CAMPUS.
Of course, even with the map, it still took me an eternity to find the building. Occasionally I'd find a sign that gave me information I could corroborate with the map - like "Agricultural Sciences" and then I'd find the building for Agricultural Science on the map, and pinpoint which grid square I was in. I was looking for D5. I ended up, at one point, in C3, because I'd had to detour around a large section of walkway and building that was blocked off for construction. I found a real, live campus map in C3, which showed me how far away I'd wandered from my intended destination, and after taking a picture of the map, because I was sure I'd never see one again in this lifetime, I hiked back up towards my building.
I think I probably passed Triffo Hall at least once, possibly twice, while looking for it. It's a lot smaller than the stupid picture leads you to believe, and it's also so close to this other yooge building, the Cameron (aww, I miss him!) Library, that it looks like it's part of the larger building. But find it I did, in the end. I managed to get there about 10 minutes before the end of office hours, which earned me a glare from the receptionist, but at that point I was beyond caring. I briefly explained why I was there to the receptionist, who called in an advisor for me to talk to. After explaining my situation, and how Border Patrol hadn't given me a study permit, she said, "Wow, I have no idea. We've never had a situation like this before." She then tried to tell me I was in the country illegally if I didn't have a study permit; I reminded her that the BORDER PATROL guy was the one who let me in the country and told me I was a citizen, so, not so much really. She referred me to U of A International. They are based out of the HUB. I'd walked out of the HUB about an hour earlier. My entire conversation with her took all of about 5 minutes, which could have happened over the phone if the stupid system hadn't HUNG UP ON ME, but nooo...
Anyways, so after taking my leave of Triffo Hall, I schlepped my way back to the HUB. I ended up in the mall, somehow - I just picked a door to go in, and that's where I ended up. After traversing half the length of the mall, I found a UAI info desk, where the (attractive) young man there instructed me to walk about a third of the way farther along to the door that would lead me down to their main office. I made it to the office, and managed to get the attention of the receptionist, who had to make me an appointment to talk to an advisor on Friday, because they were all doing orientation. After picking up my orientation packet, I limped back to the LRT station for the trip home.
Getting back on the LRT - no problem. Getting on the bus home - oy. So, I remembered that the bus I needed was the 40 Yellowbird. As I walked out of the LRT station, what was right there? 40 Yellowbird. So I hopped on, flashed my pass, and sat down. As we pulled out of the station, I saw another 40 Yellowbird bus, and felt a flash of worry, but I figured, well, it's the number and route I need, soo....
Soo...the bus doesn't go to my stop, this round. It doesn't even go to my neighborhood. I sat, and I waited, and I prayed really hard for the driver to turn right, turn right, right here, this is the way I need to---aaannnddd you turned left. Jerk. I ended up riding the whole route, up to the mall, and back to the LRT station, where I promptly fled the bus. I yanked out my phone and found the ETS site, punched in my coordinates and destination, and got....the 40 Yellowbird as my only option if I wanted to leave in the next lifetime. So, after taking some deep, soothing, don't-you-dare-cry breaths, I stomped back over and, in a near-yell, ask the driver if the bus stops at 11 Ave. He pulls out his route map and says, "Yup" like it's no big deal, and I tell him, "Okay, but I just rode the whole last route, and it didn't go over there, and this says 40 Yellowbird, which is what I need, so I had to make sure because I want to get home before I die." He tells me to sit up front, and he'll let me know when it's my stop. I wanted to say, no, I know my stop, you didn't go there, even though it's, ostensibly, on the 40 Yellowbird route, but there were people waiting to get on.
I think I may have hurt his feelings, because when he got to my stop he yelled, really loudly (even though I was right there), "For the lady who wanted 11 Ave, this is your stop!" Thanks, bus guy.
Once inside my room, I took off my shoes because my feet, which had been used to comfy open-toed flip-floppy-type shoes, were vigorously protesting their confinement in my Docs for the first time in months (it was cold outside). After pulling my socks off, I realized just how upset they were - I currently have a blister bigger than my little toe growing off the side of my big toe on my left foot, and the beginnings of another toe-sized blister on the side of my right foot.
Hopefully, my feet get over their confinement soon, because the past few days have been cold, and it rained a lot yesterday. Flip flops ain't gonna cut it no more.
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