First couple of weeks

Yo. What's up? I'm procrastinating from studying. I think a good number of my blogs will written in this context.

So, what do you want to know? I told you about my first few days here. Once Mom left, I was really on my own. It was a good time, I was quite alone but having some time to just be myself was okay. I think I sometimes run from loneliness, but it's not such a bad thing. I rode around on my bike and took public transportation to get a feel for what was around. I read a lot. It now seems like a long time ago, and it was uneventful, so that's about all I can think of.

Once Roger, my roommate, arrived from Laramie, Wyoming, things changed quite a bit. He got in on Friday, Sept 15. It was good to finally meet him after talking on the phone and with email. He is quite a social person, so we went out and met some people. It turned out some guys from upstairs had their door open, so we just walked in a met them, then hung for the evening. We have since learned that 305 in our building is the location of frequent parties. 4 guys live there, so it is affectionately known as the "Isle of Man" I actually mentioned it in my last post. But anyways. The next day was the office of admissions party, where I started to meet more people. A group of us formed which lead to enjoyable activities over the next fews days. Example: the beach, on Sunday. But I am beginning to realize that a day by day description of activities will be long and tedious. So here is the gist of things...

Orienation week was from the 18th-23rd. This week was predominantly spent with my cohort. My cohort is made up of the 43 Students (15 guys, 28 girls) who are entering the PhD (25) or PsyD (18) program of clinical psychology this year. We had lots of activities to get to know them and also the faculty of the program. There was also lots of free food. It was good to learn about our program and classes etc. It was a different feel because for the 4 days leading up to it, I had hung out almost exclusively with the group formed at the office of admissions party. Then, I hung out almost exclusively with people from the psych group, because we had so many cohort related activities. I will be a little more work to spend time with people not in the same program, I think.

Another beach trip was made on Saturday at the end of orientation. So I'm glad I made it to the beach twice. I'm not sure how many more times I'll be able to go now that school started and it might cool down in the future (but it's in no rush to do so; it's still usually about 30 every day).

Okay, it's a couple weeks after this draft, which I saved and then left and then forgot about. At least I've got the blog back online; it was inaccessible for a couple weeks there. Umm...so what else? I don't know. So I'll curtail it here and then give you a more recent update soon (hopefully).

Early Cali Pics - Beach and Dancing

I can't believe I'm at seminary

Honestly. I can't. I wouldn't know it was seminary unless someone told me. I mean, there are times. This week has been quite unlike anything I've ever done.

Where to start. I want to start at the very beginning, when I arrive, 'cause I haven't talked about that. I want to contrast the last 7 days with the 7 days prior, because they've been so disparate. I want to talk about the future and what I'm excited for. I guess that what I've just laid out is actually a reasonable outline. The only problem is I know there's no way I've got enough energy to write all that.

Okay. Lets start from the beginning. I arrived to LAX on September 5, 2006. My mom flew down with me. In Edmonton, we managed to miss our flight, but after some clever re-routing, still managed to arrive the same time we would have. And they processed my entrance to the US, as I am an international student. The we is me and my mom, she flew down with me. We rented a car (an '06 Mustang convertable, courtesy the free double upgrade in the entertainment book). We then spent the next 6 days getting me set up. That involved a lot of driving around to Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Costco, Target and elswhere. It's funny 'cause I know we did lots of stuff but when I write it down, it doesn't seem like much. I think we made numerous trips to Target, also to food stores, bed/bath stores, etc. I got some furniture from International Students Office. The community coordiators also gave us some furniture. We also cleaned the place and laid down shelf paper, etc. Mom did lots of that (thanks!). So by the time mom left on Sunday, I was pretty much settled. We didn't do tons of fun stuff. We did hit up the Huntington Library, a huge botanical garden with lots of different theme areas, as well as an art gallery. And then she flew back to E-town on Sunday the 12th. And then I was actually on my own.

Next post will continue with "what I did once I was actually on my own."

Just a note...It's about 10 minutes to 12:00am here, on a Friday night. I've just written a little bit before going to bed. But I can hear the party in my building that I just recently left, it's still going on and apparently increased in loudness, as the sounds of it are wafting down the floors from where it is (305) to where I am (104). Bits of my are curious, but I think I'll just have to live with decision to get home, slow down and get to bed to make tomorrow a day I'll enjoy that much more. But it's things like that which actually inspire a the title for this post. You'll hear more about them soon. Cheers.

Test

Just a test post, as the last one didn't seem to work.

I'm here

Hey folks...I'm here. I'm gonna keep it short. But I've arrived to Pasadena California. I'm getting set up in my new place. I'll send an email with address and phone number once I've got that. The campus is really beautiful (except of course where the construction is still going on to get stuff ready for back to school). The area is an interesting mix. I and the campus are basically right in the heart of Pasadena, right in/near downtown (this doesn't mean skyscrapers, but lots of shops, lots of people, lots of concrete, etc). But just a few blocks in the right direction and you can get away from it all. It's going to be a pretty good mix. I'll post more in the future (I don't have a computer yet; I'm at the library). Peace.