Woke up around 11 today. It was nice to have a relaxing morning and take my time getting ready. Once it hit 12 I headed outside to take care of some errands. My first stop was the dean's office of my faculty. This is also the building where all of my classes would be, so I wanted to scope it out anyway. There are a few ways to get there, but the quickest is to walk up Lossi street. Unfortunately, this street is a rather steep uphill climb, and also happens to be quite icy. I'm sure it's not always iced over, but with the melting snow and mid-30 degree temperatures I think it will remain that way for a while. Luckily my trek up this street did not result in my falling on my face, but I anticipate it happening at some point. Upon arrival at the office I discovered that they didn't have hours available for international students until after 14:00. So back outside I went!
I decided at this point I would go get my library card. I had thankfully stopped at the library the day before, so I had a vague idea of where it was in relation to the Computer Science building. The library doesn't look like much from the outside, and honestly didn't look like much on the inside. But I only went on the first floor, so perhaps the other floors are nicer. The process of getting my library card was simple enough, fill out a form, pay 1.60 euros, receive card.
Once that was done I made my way towards the financial office to pick up my stipend for the month of February. This would be the only time I had to physically go to the office; for the rest of my stay they'll be depositing the stipend directly to my bank account every month. I had a bit of trouble locating the office, as the directions I received during orientation were a bit fuzzy. But after wandering around for a bit I found it. Inside I found who I needed to talk to, gave them my bank account number, and received my stipend.
At this point it was almost 14:00 so I decided to head back to the dean's office to get my school ID. I ended up waiting outside the office for around 10 minutes until I could go in. Again, a fairly simple process: I gave them my passport and a document photo and within a few minutes I had my ID!
I was very pleased to have gotten all of this done in one day. Now all I have left to do is pick up my debit card (which I'll do tomorrow) and get my residence permit (which I'll have a workshop for on Thursday). Other than those two things I can now focus on schoolwork. My first class of the day is Cryptology I at 16:00.
I left at around 15:40 to get to my class. It was a good thing, because it took me a little under 20 minutes to get there. Walking to class and seeing no familiar faces along the way was a new experience for me. It was almost frightening in a sense; I'm used to walking the same path, seeing smiling faces and friends on my way to class each day. I felt almost bereft of happiness. I felt somewhat struck by loneliness again because I was running errands alone, walking to class alone and learning alone. But, I hope to remedy this by making friends within the Computer Science Faculty.
My classroom was easy enough to find, although it was tucked away in a corner of the second floor. There were chalkboards on the front wall and a teacher's desk in the front corner. The entire far wall was covered in windows, something I'm not quite used to, as most of my classrooms at CofC had either no windows, or small windows. The student desks were set up in rows of 3, with 2 seats per desk. The students that knew people in the class obviously sat together, while everyone else picked a desk alone. It was interesting how some college social habits seem to stretch over cultures (or rather over oceans). There were a lot more females in this class than I expected, although we were still outnumbered by the guys.
The teacher was a middle-aged German man who was very lively without being overt. He said that he had lived and taught in Tartu for 3 years. It was easy enough to understand his English though, the accent was present without being overbearing. He also had a very strong voice, so it was easy to hear him throughout the whole classroom. All things I was hoping for! He has an interesting habit of taking pictures of the board before he erases them. He said that he would post them on the website for our perusal later, which is nice. He also had a strange method of erasing the board, he had a large squeegee-type device that he would wet in the sink and use to wipe off the chalk. It was quite efficient and I am curious to see if that's something specific to him, or if the other teachers here at UT do it as well.
The lecture material itself was also somewhat interesting, though I wasn't completely enthralled with it. We went over simple ciphers such as the Caesar Cipher, Vigenere Cipher, Substitution Cipher and the Enigma Machine.
Class lasted from 4pm until 6pm, and though there was a reception scheduled at 6 I ended up not going. It was completely dark at that point, and also raining. I wasn't inclined to walk through the cold and rain to a location I was not entirely sure of. All I knew was that it was a 12 minute walk from my current location. Therefore I elected to head home, stopping at the market for some cereal on the way.
The rain was...different. It was almost eerie in the way that it fell. There was no noise from it and I could not feel it as I was wearing a hat and gloves. Except for the occasional drops that would make it to my face, it almost seemed as if it was not raining at all. If I had not seen the downpour highlighted by the streetlights or the small puddles created on the ground I honestly would not have believed it was raining. It was such a turnaround from the rain I'm used to in Charleston, where there is a cacophony of noise, multitude of puddles and people with umbrellas. All that aside, it did create an interesting and somewhat beautiful pattern of ice on my jacket.
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