Random Scrap:
The first lecture took place in the Pimentel [Hall] part of the science department. A few days earlier I walked around the campus trying to memorise the position of the buildings from the maps as not to look lost and new. It was a grey morning and there were already people congregating in front of the lecture hall. Inside was a place that looked like an auditorium with a podium in the middle. There must have been more than two hundred people in the room. It was the American politics and the teacher talked about how the shape of politics had changed and how campaigning for a candidate never stopped. The lectures were to be conducted by the professor himself but the discussions group was led by a Russian-American PhD student. She lived with her parents in San Francisco, used the word lame quite a bit and while nice seemed to project a level of toughness and hard work. I went to see my major advisor and managed to convert the credit for the class I took with Ms. Scarfee. The gsi replied to my email saying there were better classes to take and wished me luck with my studying.