Huhh??

Alright. Everyone needs to take a moment and reflect on the organized, logical systems we have in Canada and express gratitude for the blessing they are. For example, standing in line to get bread at the bakery rather than standing in a throng of people and hoping they see you amidst this crowd of crazy Spaniards when your number is called.

However, the disorganization that has driven every international student crazy since they got here has to do with the school. So, I am studying at a snotty, rich-kid, private, religious university here. You would think with a private University it would be full of the best of the best and that you could figure out how things work pretty easy. Well, you are wrong.

1)      The website. Comillas has THE most confusing website I have ever seen in my ENTIRE life. Seriously...... Seriously. Yah, it deserves two seriously-s. Anytime a professor needs you to get anything off the website, they then have to sit and give you step by step instructions on how to find it and where. Dear Comillas, if you design a logical website, you could eliminate this issue.

2)      Registering for classes. What...a... gong... show. Everything overlaps with everything else. Some classes run all year, some don’t. You are never really certain which classes you are actually allowed to register for. Some classes are on a campus in a different city with an hour commute. Some classes are in English, some in Spanish. AND to top it all off, for the majority of classes, you have to set them in stone before you can even attend the class. Yikes!

3)      Oh wait, you signed up for all of your classes online and built your timetable? You think that means you registered? You are wrong. Now you need to print off a ton of stuff, photocopy your passport and travel insurance, bring in two photos of yourself, a blood sample, your heritage back 8 generations, and your firstborn child, well, if you have born children. If not, you’re screwed, sorry. And I can guarantee the room you think you are supposed to bring all this too will not be the room you need to bring it to.

4)      The school layout. I have been lost soooooo many times. There are four different stairwells, well, that I have found, in this school. You think you could take any of them to get to the room you need on the fourth floor? You are wrong. You must go around the courtyard, up the east stairwell, through the magical closet that takes you to Narnia, throw salt over your shoulder, spin three times, and then you might, just might, find the room you need.

5)      Finally, printing. I consider myself a pretty smart girl but it still took me three tries to find the room to print in. Of course, once I got there I found out that I needed to go back a room and hit print on a computer in there, then return to the printing room, with your my paper and my second born child, and hit print again. Very similar to the way the UofA does it, minus the second child of course, so it really wasn’t too bad but it has tripped up many other students.

In the end, none of this is suuuuuper confusing. You figure it all out in the end and students do their best to help each other out. But, when evvvery single thing you try to do takes 17 times longer than it really should, I start to get confused and overwhelmed. But hey! Being overwhelmed means I get to eat more Principe Cookies!!! And THAT is a good thing!