Kick-off of another semester
In Rochester, we don’t call it a snowy Wednesday, but just ‘Wednesday.’ Second semester is underway. Everyone came back from winter break and hugged each other, bringing about happy atmosphere around the school. I came back from Korea, spending my winter break working at a factory and seeing family and friends in between.
One thing as an international student, I wish that flying to Rochester was better. My transfer flight from Narita, Japan to JFK was delayed for two hours, resulting my missing my next flight to Rochester. And the answer I heard from the airline I was flying on was, “Here is a standby ticket and we can’t guarantee your flight to Rochester today, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow because they seem all booked. Or you can go to La Guardia, fly to Detroit and then to Rochester. That also, we can’t guarantee.”
Every time I come to US from Korea, I never sleep in the plane so I could adjust to time change well. This delay happened after I stayed up for more than 20 hours from my first flight in Korea. There was no other moment that I wanted my bed in dorm room than this. Soon, I called my friends and found out there were still tickets on sale at a high price. It is understandable that last minute tickets are very costly, but I was very unsatisfied with airline companies not trying to guarantee flights to such customers (Oh yes, there were more than ten other people flying to Rochester from Narita) who couldn’t do anything about the delays in international flights. Before the next flight that I got standby ticket, I was very nervous at what I should have done next if I couldn’t get that flight. I felt I was real life version of Tom Hanks in the movie Terminal. Fortunately, I finally got the flight within 5 hours. Moreover, when I got to Rochester, one of my checked baggages was still at JFK so I had to pick it up the next day. After all, I wish it was my last nightmare of flying to Rochester.
Other than that, school has started and I feel fresh. This semester, I am overloading with 26 credits, taking 6 4-credit classes and one 2-credit class. Hopefully taking this many classes will not be as hard as my flight! Meliora!