I'm a SCHOLARRRR

So, until about 3 days ago, the extent of my researching had consisted of reading a general history of Romania (albeit a very good one) and doing a bit of sightseeing at the monasteries, in between trips to Cora and the National Office of Health Insurance [to Make Greater Well-Being of Glorious Peoples of Socialist Republic of Romania]. However, I finally finished reading and went back through my notes and highlighted portions and sticky labels and the bibliography and started making To-Do Lists.

With library card in hand, I purposefully strode to the history library. I requested 3 books. Let me interject by adding that in order to request a book, one must fill out a slip with:

Author's Name

Book title

Book code

Your Name

Your Address

Your Faculty

Your Occupation

Your year

This is for every single book. So apparently, one of the books was not available, but I had two. I inquired about taking the books with me (ahhh my broken Romanian....."yes, I wish to have books and take home with me? Is possible? Nu? Nu, never? Ever, ever ever? oh.) 

Incidentally, having a library card means... nothing? With a library card, one may only request a book from the desk and then read it in the same room before returning it. Wow, thanks. 

So, I went to try my luck at the BIG library. I enter the building and not sure where to go, just follow someone into a HUGE room FULL of card catalogues. Dear Winchester Elementary school, thanks for teaching me how to use a card catalogue. With To-Do List in hand, I root around for the books and finally come up with a couple that I want. 

In this library, one must also fill out

Library Card Number

"Place" number

When I handed the woman the slips, she hands me back a card with a number on it. I enter through the Doors into the Hall where there are vast rows of tables, each seat numbered. I proceed to my seat and twiddle my thumbs. After 10 minutes, a man comes with books. He is holding 2 books, the same number I requested, I am looking at him expectantly, I am sitting at a desk without ANYTHING in front of me, and I am waiting. He looks at me, looks at the desk number next to me and ALMOST turns to leave. Probably my skeptically raised eyebrows/panicky look changed his mind. He helpfully informed me that I was sitting in Place Number 55, not Place Number 56, as I should be (the bloody numbers are on the side of the Place, honest mistakkkee!!!!!!) and he insisted that I stand up, reassemble my items and place them on the desk next to me before he will give me the books. Do keep in mind that I am the only person in this row of about 15 places. 

So I start reading the books, but it's the end of the day, I'm hungry, this whole system, frankly, exhausts me (I MISS YOU LEYBURNNNNNNN LIBRARY!!!!!) and I really want to go home (and the hall is unheated). So I ask the woman if there's any chance of ever taking books home with me. No, is the answer. Of course not, what was I thinking, this is just a LIBRARY.

It doesn't surprise me that people leave Romania to be educated. Professors here are indifferent and unreachable, lectures are boring and uninspiring, plagarism is rife and totally accepted, and the libraries function like an old Soviet agency. 

Onto another fun story, I am in the midst of planning a trip to Iasi and I apparently need some sort of official letter in order to get the trip paid for. Sigh. Oh Washington and Lee, with your uniform and logical email addresses which made writing any professor at all such a simple process. Every professor here has his own personal email address,  which is obviously not listed on the university's webpages. Maybe I'll just go to the stamp store and have some special stamps made and I'll just write my own letter and then stamp it 5 times with my special stamps. Sort of like that woman at the National Office of Health Insurance.