Kay Goes to Intercollege

On to my scholastic experiences. Tuesday was the first day of class; Throughout the weekend, I wavered between being somewhat anxious, and having it all feel like some sort of joke. The idea of me attending courses at a Cypriot university alongside Cypriots students was a little too peculiar to actually worry myself about. You may scoff and say, what about the language schools? And I respond by saying, WAY DIFFERENT. These are normal classes that give grades! And are being applied to people's (including mine) degrees, rather than being taken cause it'd be fun. Also, it feels quite weird to speak perfectly the language of instruction as a foreigner in this place. I almost feel guilty about not having an accent, especially in the American professor's class, although I imagine they are far more accustomed to British English, so I probably sound rather funny to all of them.

Intercollege is the largest university in the Republic (though I’m not sure about the Turkish side: I read somewhere that the student to population ratio in North Cyprus is one of the highest in the world, because loads of Turks come here (there?) to study). The fact that all courses are taught in English mean that there are loads of international students. But the largest school is Cypriot terms entails a student body of about five thousand, and it appears that the vast majority of them aren’t really into summer school.

My schedule is this: class on Tuesday and Thursday, 10-1 and 3-6. In a normal semester, classes meet for three blocks only once per week, and one of my teachers described a typical Cypriot attitude toward class. Arrive twenty minutes late, when the teacher gives a twenty-five minute break, take forty-five, and then try to get the professor to let them go fifteen minutes early. Ha! When she told us this, all the Cypriots in the class laughed and nodded knowingly. I'm beginning to see why.

My first class is about diplomacy, and upon arriving (five minutes early), I was the second person there. Two other students came in and sat down, then the professor entered: a middle-aged white man wearing a Seussical the Musical baseball hat. He saw the four of us, smiled, and said in an entirely American voice: “Oh, I’ve been in this room before. Okay, we’ve got four so far, that’s more than I was expecting!”

Hmm. I’m really not into small groups and the utter lack of anonymity they produce. Luckily, two other Cypriots showed up a little late (shock), as did the other guy from my program taking this class (naturally, the guy from VCU; it feels kind of lame explaining to people that yes, we go to the same school, even had a class together, but we didn’t know each other at all and it is entirely random that we both happen to be here and taking the same two classes), so there are seven of us now.

I like this professor quite a bit. He’s from New York, and he lives here because his wife is a Cypriot. He seems to know thousands a little stories and anecdotes and funny tidbits, mostly of international affairs. Every five or ten minutes, he’ll be lecturing, then something will occur to him, whether it's the story of the guy whose full time job at the FDA was to measure the viscosity of ketchup, or the time his ex-fiancée’s uncle (seriously) retold the details of the food, drink and conversation of a meal that took place in 1962, decades after it occurred.

A good one is how EU bureaucrats (oh wow, when I was just typing that, I accidentally wrote “bureaubrats” - I like it!) in Brussels have told Cyprus that their cucumbers are too small, and sent people down here to measure these faulty vegetables and lecture Cypriot cucumber growers. The Cyprus Problem has been present since 1974, and since we can’t solve that, let’s see what we can do about the Cyprus Cucumber Problem! I can tell I’m going to really like this class. It may sound like he just goes off on tangents all the time, but it isn't quite like that. He's really great with the actual subject matter, and most of his stories are fairly related to what we are talking about. And he always meanders his way back to the original topic in less time than many of my previous tangent-prone teachers.

Oh dear, I realize I haven’t so much as mentioned the Cafeteria yet! It is a wonderful place. My first taste of a glorious frappe was had here, roughly 9:10am Tuesday morning. Life changed a little bit for me after that moment…aka, I am completely and utterly addicted. I had frappes at the Continental a couple of times, but in all honesty, I didn't really care one way or another for those ones. But the way the Intercollege cafeteria ladies do it, it’s not just foamed Nescafe, sugar and milk, there’s a hefty spoonful of magic dust too. Tragically it is beginning to appear that nowhere else on this island so far makes a frappe as good – I’m been sampling all week, and finding mostly disappointment.

Naturally I was nervous that I would be unable to meet Cypriots or any non-American students at school, there being so many of us. But before my first class on Tuesday, I had gone early to discover which room my class was in and try a frappe, so I was sitting at a table outside next to the cafeteria, and a Cypriot-looking girl called over from another table to ask if I had a lighter. I walked over and handed one to her, and she asked where I was from. I told her, and she seemed puzzled, asked me a question or two, then I asked where she was from, and she just orders me, “oh, get your stuff, move over here.” Her name is Anastasia, and she’s from Toronto, but moved here when she was twelve, and we chatted until I went to class. I don’t mean this in an unfriendly way, but it was a massive relief to talk to someone who isn't on the program. I feel sometimes like I’m stuck in a big American sleeping bag and I can’t get it unzipped.

So in my two hour break, I was sitting inside the cafeteria, and a Chinese girl from my class joined me (turns out she’s in both my classes, and she’s really sweet), then Anastasia showed up again and sat with us, then a Nigerian guy she knew came and sat down too. I felt so popular! (All the Americans around at the moment were sitting with other Americans.) We all hung out for a long time, I sipped an icy frappe and was happy.

I then had my afternoon course, on the European Union. This time it was me, the guy from VCU, his cousin who is also doing the program, and four Cypriots. The teacher is a Greek Cypriot, and I think she looks like a teenager; it’s incredible. She can be kind of funny, and has a pretty engaging lecture style, so I think I will like the course. Her laugh though...wow. Cackle doesn't quite do it justice, nor does screech...I think it may be the most distinctive and piercing sound I have ever heard.

The problem was encountered on Thursday: I walked in, and in addition to us seven students from Tuesday’s class, there were fifteen additional Americans. Talk about a shift in dynamics. They're all doing a very different program from me and the two other guys from Richmond; they stay in Cyprus for only the month of June, then travel to Europe for ten days, coming back for a little party or something before they leave in the middle of July. So they all have this class that we share four or five days a week, while my group has it two. I can’t even begin to understand how that can work and be fair to all students involved, but I will abstain from writing a letter of complaint until they all leave. Maybe it won’t be so bad.

As for assignments: I have to write several papers (longer than I expected too) with accompanying presentations, and exams. The next month and a half will not exactly be a vacation, though it will involve a lot of frappes, which do make life seem a little easier…