Squirrels and the Green "Wich"

Today I was at the place where time begins.

Okay, I don’t know exactly where the Prime Meridian passes through, but I’ll probably find out in the next 3 years when I’m going to study at the University of Greenwich.

Why did I go to university today? I had to complete my registration. The final step was the face to face registration. Monday I’ll be starting my adventure with a welcome week full of all kinds of meetings, boat trips, some tutorials. I don’t really think I totally understand what I’ll be doing next week, but while finding out, I’ll keep you up to date on Adventures of the Muddy Shoes (press the subscribe button down the page to make sure you won’t miss anything).

Now let me tell you more about today. I rode the bus from home to the university (2 buses, actually). When I get there, a museum meets me on my left-hand side - the National Maritime Museum, and on my right-hand side a couple of imposing old buildings, many alleys, trees, grass. I enter the park (I can’t call it a campus) and try to find a sign, something saying “Welcome to the University of Greenwich” or “Face to face registration here”. As I’m usually blind, I didn’t see the huge purple lounge chair on which is written “Student Center” at first - I know that what I’m saying doesn’t make any sense, but I’ll take some photos next week, I promise. So, being blind, I passed past all of the signs and I walked among some gigantic white buildings until I got at the end of the park and saw 2 girls wearing t-shirts with something written on them, so I went there to ask them where I am. Yeah, unfortunately, they weren’t working there and they didn’t know more about it than I did, but I met another future student - she’ll be studying law, equally confused as me.

We start walking through the park until we find the place where I remembered seeing something with “Reception”. It wasn’t the right reception. It was the reception of a Conservatory where jazz rhythms could be heard filling the entire park. Really nice atmosphere. We probably weren’t the first students to get lost because the receptionist guided us to our much sought after university. It’s okay, it was written in huge letters on the door that it’s “The University of Greenwich”.

We enter, we see a sign saying “Registration part 2”. What we were looking for.

In the waiting area, there were approximately 20 chairs and a queue system with sitting on chairs. To me, it seemed a bit like playing musical chairs because I had to keep moving on to the next chair each time someone was getting up for registration, but at least I spent those 10-15 minutes sitting down. I felt that the university is truly there for me and that I, the Student, am the most important one.

What I felt was confirmed right after the waiting when, before entering the real registration, I sat for some minutes at a “Well-being Check” where a student, part of the Students Union, asked me some questions about myself, she told me more about the facilities offered by the university: gym, library where I can find people to check my essays or other papers before I submit them and give me feedback, she told me where I can find counselors and psychologists in case I need one and how I can make an appointment. I talked to her about the part time job as a “Greenwich Student Ambassador” as well. She is also one of them and, having the volunteering background, she suggested that I apply for this too because it’s a nice opportunity to do what I enjoy most and actually be paid for it. There are also many informal groups based on students' interests and passions. Even more than that, if you’ve got a passion and there isn’t a group for that yet, you are given a lot of support to establish a group on your own.

Hmmm... how does the idea of a young people's group interested in youth work sound like? If there isn't one already, I might start one.

This step didn't take me much, but I saw a future student before me that was very unsure and scared about the fact that everything is going to change once she starts her student life. The student that was doing her check listened to her carefully, she asked her some questions and recommended her to talk to the counselors. She did a great job (yes, I eavesdropped to their talk). At the end, the unsure student seemed to have already won at least a little bit of self- confidence.

Then, let's do what I was supposed to do. I got to an IT lab - new PCs, high-tech so on and so forth. The politeness of people here continues to surprise me! None of the ladies at registration was very young (as I already mentioned in my previous articles, the old people here are very valued). The lady who did my registration was SO sweet! OH MY! Her job was to verify if the form I had to complete in the "Online Registration" stage was correct and to check some boxes on the PC. We debated over which is the best way for my name to be written on my badge, if it's okay if my middle name does not appear on it because of the lack of space or if I really wanted to be Beatrix-Alexandra on the badge, it could be done this way as well, no problem. In the end, I received a map of the campus and lots of explanations about what, where to find, information about the transportation card and student sales. I even got a card which offers me sales for manuals. Don't ask, it was free, I'll see what I'll use it for.

All in all, after finishing with all of these, I get out and wait for Victor who has gone to explore my campus while waiting for me and, what do you think I saw as I was getting out? A SQUIRREL! I slowly try to get closer, I start taking pictures of it from far away as I am used to scared squirrels that run away as soon as they see you. Yeah, sure! The squirrel stops, looks at me, climbs up the tree and waits for me to take artistic pictures of it again. That’s a squirrel!

I can’t wait for it all to start!

Translation by Ariadna Mărginean