If I were to write a memoir about the past week of my life (believe me, I’m long-winded enough — this 500 word maximum is killing me) I would call it “Queue” as in: “Hannah Vose has spent most of her waking hours since leaving for the airport last Thursday queueing.”
My flight to JFK was grounded twice because of the weather (both on the tarmac, once 2 minutes before we were about to take off) resulting in my missing my flight to Dublin. The next flight was at 7:25 PM the next day, so I ended up driving to JFK where I successfully left and got to Dublin in one piece, albeit a day late. Ashley and Colin were fantastic: meeting me at halls, giving me a quick orientation, and being understanding of my jet-lagged behavior. (Thanks so much, guys!)
This is the part of my story conspicuously without queuing, and I would advise everyone with dual citizenship with an EU country (like myself) to take note: I didn’t have to wait in a massive queue in customs since we landed early morning and I used my UK passport to travel, so I walked up to the EU window, handed the officer my passport, and he looked at it and waved me through. Easy as that; didn’t ask to see my proof of enrollment or anything. PLUS I don’t have to register with the Garda AND I don’t need a working permit/I was able to apply for a PPSN (which is the Irish version of a Social Security Number), although I did queue for about 2 hours for it. (Hint: get to Intreo early, because the waiting list is long and slow.)
Trinity: if there’s one thing you should know going in, it’s that module registration — which is different from college registration (yay! bureaucracy!) — is done on paper since Trinity is still medieval in some stubborn, unfortunate ways. This means that there are a lot of queues to stand in, things to sign up for, and meetings to attend. On Monday I was treated not once, not twice, but three times to queueing for Academic Registry to get my proof of address verified. I then signed up to meet with the English coordinator (on Friday, woe is me) and subsequently queued over the next day or so to set up an account with BOI, sign up for a LEAP card, get my college ID, and apply for History modules.
A word of advice here: every “school” does things differently (individual meetings vs. group sessions, etc.), and it’s your responsibility to figure it out. Read the visiting student orientation packet. Carry it with you always. It’s a lifesaver.
Thanks to all this waiting I’ve finished Mo Yan’s Pow! and am half-way through Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 (both highly recommended). So, O’ Future Trinity Students: bring a book/kindle/nook with you everywhere during Freshers Week, because you’re going to have a lot of time to read.
Oh, and sign up for societies.
(But seriously: bring a book.)
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Hannah Vose
<p><span style="color: rgb(29, 29, 29); font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237);">Hannah Vose is a University of Rochester junior, majoring in English with an interest in literary translation studies. When not burying her nose in whichever book has most recently been plucked from atop the dangerously tall pile on her desk, she can be found obsessively learning new languages, squinting through her (very stylish, thank you!) bifocals at someone else's writing in her job as a Writing Fellow, drinking stupid amounts of tea, squinting through her bifocals at her own writing in her job as a scathing self-critic, or dreaming of living somewhere which gets even less sun than Rochester. Born in England but having lived most of her life in Endicott, New York, she has traveled back to the Land of Her People twice and visited Dublin once on the way over. She considered applying to Trinity College as an international student, but was deterred by tuition costs (yikes!) so she's absolutely 100% thrilled to be living in Dublin and taking classes at Trinity for an entire year (and only about 34% of that is because she might get to take a class on Patrick McCabe -- will it happen? Stay tuned!)</span></p>
