The whirlwind begins.

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(Normally there'd be a picture in this space, but this morning the Blogger software is having internal difficulties and cannot upload my photo of a hedge in my neighbourhood trimmed into the shape of a waving Winnie the Pooh. Stay tuned for edits once the software has resolved its difficulty. UPDATE: Software difficulty resolved.
Picture now appears below.)

So yesterday was TA orientation day. All the new MA and PhD students, sitting in a room together, learning about marking practices* and Western's policies on how to handle (for example) cheaters, or students with newly-deceased relatives. These policies seem pretty sweet from where I'm standing, since, according to them, dealing with these issues is simply not my job. There's a well-articulated "chain of command" in place, in which my role as a TA is to identify problems and then pass 'em along. And based on my experience so far with the UWO administration, I'm pretty confident that these policies in action very closely approximate these policies on paper.

This school runs like an undoubtedly complex and exceptionally well maintained, well-oiled machine handled by mechanics who actually know all the machine's parts and how those parts fit together. I have been pleasantly and repeatedly surprised by how easy taking care of details like finishing registration, picking up keys and keycodes, and getting an ID card was. These are activities that should be simple. Easy. Quick. But any of you who have stood waiting in line for upwards of half an hour at the Mount's registrar's counter, only to reach the counter and have to discuss, in earshot of ten other students who are also waiting for service, things that seem like they should be confidential -- especially if you've then been told you've come to the wrong place, or at the wrong time, or with the wrong piece of paper -- will appreciate the registrar's set-up at Western: you approach a service counter where you simply state why you need to talk to someone (i.e., "I need a form filled out."). The people at the counter give you a number, and direct you to a waiting area full of comfortable chairs where you sit all civilized-like until it's your turn. Then you move into an office-like area where you sit down at one of a number of cubicle-type desks across from a registrar's assistant. Each of these desks is separated from its neighbour by dividing walls that extend so far back on either side that your interview is, in fact, entirely private. Best of all: what happens next is exactly what you've been told -- via email from the English Graduate Assistant -- will happen next. The registrar's assistant accesses your file, and voilà! You're in and out in just a few minutes.

I set aside big blocks of time over a couple of days in August to take care of the administrative details at the school, fully expecting to have to make multiple trips to various offices over the course of a few days in order to end up, finally, with an i.d. card, a bus pass, some keys and passswords, and fewer cheques in the ol' chequebook. All of this actually took less than an hour to accomplish on a single morning. Isn't bureaucracy kind of lovely when it actually makes your life simpler?

So, yeah. Based on my experience so far with the UWO administration, I'm fairly confident that when they say, "After identifying plagiarisers, or students with extreme writing difficulty/family emergencies/medical issues/etc., refer them to the appropriate department or to the appropriate person who is not you," they really mean it. And it's not just my experience.

After the TA orientation session yesterday, we all headed over the the Grad Club to meet our grad buddies -- PhD students who I think are there to fill a kind of mentorship role? You know, to answer questions you might have about the school, or the program? Or to make sure you've made at least one new friend (or if not friend, then at least one new contact) on your first day? Or just to pass out the ticket for the "first round's on the department" free drink we'd all been promised? At any rate, each grad buddy is matched up with one new MA student and one new PhD student, in a kind of (purely metaphorical) Welcome-to-Western-new-grad-students three-way. The new PhD student in my little triangle was also hugely impressed with how effortless was the administrative side of setting up shop as a new student at Western -- after a couple of beers, we waxed rhapsodic at length about the efficiency of the office that issues the keys. We were both so impressed, and so vocal about it, that our new grad buddy (we got a good one -- funny and smart, a third-year PhD student, native of Newfoundland, undergrad at St. F.X.) exclaimed, "Wow! You guys make me want to go here." So it's not just me.

Oh, and the new PhD student? We're TAing the same full-year course, and we're taking all the same classes. I think I've found my grad school BFF.

* The English Chair of Undergrad Studies describes "old school" English department marking schemes: "God got a hundred, Derrida got 95, and the rest of us could hope for up to 85 on a good day."