Registration Frustration

As a student at Calvin, who has registered five different time each with its own set of terribly annoying problems I can now say that I am incredibly thankful for our registration process.
At the university this past week we had to go through orientation and registration, welcome back to being a freshman, except as an international student. Anyway, here's how it worked.

Step one of registration was to figure out what classes you wanted to take. This was done by going online and looking at the course catalog, the classes had to be level 200-400 and needed to end with an even number. I was able to find classes that looked cool and fulfilled Calvin core requirements or requirements for my major/minors.
Step two, walk to all of the departments of the classes you wanted to take to see if the list of second semester classes was available. Keep in mind that Calvin is tiny and it takes 5 mins to walk anywhere on campus, whereas at the Univeristy of Ghana is a massive school and walking takes about 30 mins in the least. One of the frustrating things about registration was that not all departments had the list of classes being offered this semester up. We registered on Wednesday at 11:30 and very few departments had their lists up.
Step three is when I actually registered online in the computer lab of the International Programs Office. That was simple and pretty straight forward process, however, you sign up for as many classes as you can because you can add/drop later.
Step four was to walk around to the departments again to see if the table tables for the classes had been posted, hoping and praying none of the classes you wanted to take conflicted with each other. These lists were not all up until the day before the first day of class.

I am thankful for the process because it forced myself and many of my group members to let go of the reigns and to just go with the flow. It was frustrating and nerve-wracking, but full of patience and grace as well. On to the actual going to class part.
We were warned many times that the first day of school/classes is not as important here as it is in the States. One of the professors helping us during our time here said that many professors do not show up to the first class. That's inconceivable for us students from Calvin. I show up 15 mins early to my first day of classes at Calvin. Today, four of us went to one of the classes we signed up for only to wander around trying to find the lecture hall which we did. We were the only students waiting for that class and the professor never showed up. We left and headed back to our dorms.
If anyone is curious, I am taking five classes total this semester. Two of these classes are being taught by Tracy Kuperus the Calvin professor who is here with us and three are U of G classes. As a group we are taking an Intro to African Studies class which is comprised of 3 week intro to African history, 3 week overview of gender in Ghana and the last 6 weeks is an elective of choice. Most of us chose the African dance class. The other two classes I enrolled in are History 112 which is selected historical topics and the second class is Climatology which I am incredibly excited about!