Day 9
Today was the final day of Orientation (aka how long can you sit in a chair and pretend like you're paying attention week) and it was the best day of all. It was International Student Orientation Day. If the title isn't exciting enough the co-hosts of the show will knock your tail feathers all the way to Idaho. They looked average enough, the lady like a librarian that may or may not host kinky fetish nights in dark suburban bedrooms and the man a young curly-haired wonder with dark, large glasses that never got trendy but probably come in useful due to the fact that his vision has probaby been impaired by an overindulgence in WOW playing or they may be his Kent Clark glasses.
The woman started the show with a military manner:
"Who has a passport?" pause "I said, who-has-a-pass-port?!"
Her quirky comments and insensitive banter continued with her opening, "I showed up in Canada PREGNANT and that was a VERY risky time for me to be without health insurance." She followed up the importance of health insurance with something similar to, "I work with two people who were hit by cars." pause "And, both have head injuries and let me tell you, both were glad they came to this meeting and heard about the importance of having health insurance."
Behind her was a screen containing the following pictogram sequence:
A bowl of clam chowder: Allegedly representing the shitty mandatory healthcare plan.
A plate of mismatched beans, a giant turkey leg, and a bread mountain: Next level up of basic care.
Pie with Whipped Cream that laid on the top in the shape of a cowpie: Fancy insurance.
Occasionally, she would let the Power Ranger wannabe take his turn, but mostly he was just their to stare down naughty kids.
Her freakshow continued with a song,
"Summer is not a program break,
Summer is not a program break,
Summer is not a program break,
At UBC."
This song was accompanied by arm flailing and a tiny hop.
The screen displayed frequent "Pop" quizzes. A term I had thought to mean, surprize. But, everyone saw these coming. The good news is that she would answer the questions for us.
Her wisdom washed over the incoming students, the longer words taking much time and enunciation to pull off but, never did we need a microphone.
She related a story to us about someone mentioning to her that she should go to a walk-in clinic and her reaction was, "Eww, gross. In the U.S. we don't go to walk-in clinics they are for poor people. It's true."
Her partner flashed more pictures on the screen; a smiley face to a demonic smiley face to an enlightened cartoon-y generic black guy gazing off slightly to a streched out drawing of a person leaping through a few blades of grass. Supposedly illustrating your journey as a foreign student. After that a list of advice appeared that included the sage counseling words, "Avoid dwelling on the negative" and "Set small goals".
Her warnings were just as fun; "If someone steals your wallet they are going to go to the doctor and pretend that they are you...it's kind of eerie."
and,
"Income tax usually makes people a bit twitchy."
"You could work at Starbucks but why would you want to?"
The best part, however, was when her speakers showed up the fire alarm went off. Not one person stood up, which was too bad because her speaker wasn't nearly as entertaining.
In other news, what's up with black squirrels always inhabiting college grounds? Are they academic squirrels? Is there some sort of knowledge plague that turns them black? All I know is that if another one looks at me like I am an inconvience PETA will have to be deployed to release my chokehold death grip by shooting me in the ass with a traq.
-Canadian Castaway
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