There is only slight exaggeration when I say that registration nearly killed me. I lost sleep, my heartbeat was like that of a jackrabbit, and I ground my teeth to next to nothing nightly, gnashing away at my mouthguard like it was chewing gum. The end result is that I am registered, finally, and have moved into my palatial postgrad office at 1 University Gardens. This here is a photo of my new workspace.

The best part of registration was the queuing. I actually looked forward to it because I enjoy writing the word “queue” so much and I knew that if I had to suffer through a long queue, I would get to write the word queue, at least several times on my blog. Mission accomplished. Go team.

My first step was to go to the registry office, which is the British term for Registrar, to see if I could register in advance of my registration time. I waited in the information queue, marked “enquiries”, for about twenty minutes. This seemed to be the logical place to wait if you have an inquiry. Those around me had an emaciated pallor indicating that they were either zombies or students trying to navigate the Scottish bureaucracy. After a while I found out that the “enquiries” window on Thursday was only dealing with obscure tax issues. A nice lady told Jansport and I to take our form to the queue across the quad.

There were multiple queues’ to choose from. I picked one that looked friendly enough and I asked a strapping fellow “is this the queue for registration?” He nodded his head. Jansport and I settled in for a nice long wait.

Like the American Nazi in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I chose poorly. About thirteen of us realized that we’d been waiting in the wrong queue for a half hour. The queue’s aren’t posted with any signs or the like so it’s sort of a trial and error thing to see if you’re in the right one – it’s like a game – but one where you always lose. So my new compatriots and I moseyed across the quad to what looked like, and was, the correct queue. You see we were in the pre-registration queue when we actually needed to be in the registration queue.

After twenty minutes of waiting outside in our new queue, we were allowed into the main registration facility, which is an open room with a line of chairs stretching as far as the eye can see. After I took my seat I got to participate in what can only been called “registration chair hopping.” Every one minute and fifteen seconds you get to get up from your chair, and shuffle down the line, and then sit back down in a new chair. Most of the time you only advanced a single chair or two. Once, I got to skip ahead six full seats. I loved that moment. At the end of the registration queue you are met by a friendly bureaucrat who stamps your form and directs you to the next queue for payment of fees, only to be followed by another queue, this one to get your ID Card.

I arrived at the registration office at 1:40. I left with my ID card at 4:10. It was fantastic. I never thought I would say this but I’ve had more efficient dealings with Penn Dot.

One more day until the end of this week’s postcard content. Submit your awesome Scot!

Ian