There was a football game tonight. Or something. So I've heard. Even the honors kids are all loud and rambunctious. Go to sleep people. Quiet hours start at nine. I think we won?

Excitedly, today was the one week marker into my college career. I'm still alive, so points for that. In that short space of time, I've managed to change my major, make a few new friends, already managed to find one class to dislike, a professor I look forward to, and do a majority of my homework well before it's due. In fact, a lot of my professors put the work up early, so I'm technically a week and a half ahead in terms of work. Plus, I've joined an extracurricular club that is probably going to be the greatest thing of my college career.

Today was of no real importance, other than a quick quiz in Chinese. However, afterwards, I treated Tristan to dinner on a guest pass and we hung out for a majority of the evening. Because everyone else was out at the game, the campus was eerily empty of people while we wandered in the twilight hours. Initially we headed out, unsure of what to do once he punished me in a Magic game: 275 to -60, ouch. We found ourselves headed to the library, which neither of us had explored yet. I know it's a library, but it was so unnervingly quiet, we retreated fairly quickly. After rooting through the shelves of Chinese literature and historical documents, on mechanical racks that compress and shift to allow access to different rows. I was worried of getting stuck between two of them, like Han and the gang in the trash compactor.

It didn't take long before we were completing a circuit around the school. I like the campus being empty. It's like it was mine for the taking. We glanced around the courtyard over the library (did I mention a majority of it lies underground?), before heading off in the direction of my class buildings, a complex that I feel I never really leave over the course of a day.

In other news, we saw a man with a hobo beard cruising along on a unicycle walking his little chihuahua up the walkway.

On our way back we managed to talk Skyelar down from her room and we raided the convenience store for drinks as we headed back to my dorm. Poor Ramesh has been bothered by everyone lately, to the point where we've been locking the door so they don't just walk in. Rude much? So we sat in there, chatting quietly until Tristan had to go home, because he doesn't live on campus with us. Lame.


So  we walked him to the garage where his mother awaited, I dropped Skyelar off at her dorm, and tried to avoid the crazy kids back from the game as I headed to my own room. It has been a very interesting, long, enjoyable, frustrating, rewarding week. And I hope next week, and all the weeks to come, are just as amazing.

But I have to admit, I am looking forward to the long weekend. Sleeeeeeeeeeep.

The only exciting thing that happened on Tuesday was I went to my Engineering Lab. So pretty. There was an entire wall of tools, everything labeled and shiny and organized, plus there was a rack of laptops for every group. Did I mention that we're going to be learning how to use power tools, and how to solder? Ugh, I'm so excited. Shame I only have it once a week.

Wednesdays are awful. But, being the middle of the week, I suppose I can bear with it. It was very long, very tedious, but I ended the day with a club meeting. My first one of college. And goodness. It was definitely worth it. SDSL, I finally remembered, stands for Sun Devil Satellite Lab. They are working on a challenge proposed by the Goddard Institute to build a cost effective solar camera, and they are hoping to launch in the next year and a half. I was worried at first, you know, being a freshman in such a technical club, but the moment they learned my class level, they became super excited; apparently they rarely get freshman new members, so the club is constantly losing people to graduation.

Unfortunately, they meet on Wednesdays, so that just increased my hours away from my dorm, but since Thursdays are easy, I guess I can let it slide. And with the close of Wednesday, I have now officially gone to every single one of the classes I have this semester. I do have to say, the 101 class that is required for all freshman is absolutely ridiculous. If it wasn't such an easy A and a requirement, I would've dropped the second I was out of class.  But as such, I'll just suffer through it. With everything being so wonderful so far, I guess something had to be wrong to balance out the awesome.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the worst days of my week, so if there aren't any posts then, I apologize. I'll try to make sure it's every day, but sometimes I just want to go to sleep. Other than that, I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the rest of the semester turns out; but it's looking pretty good so far from here.

Sorry for the lack of a post last night. I though about it, I honestly did, but then I decided to do a little homework and then a lot of sleep.

Yesterday was pretty straightforward; rode my bike around campus, figured out what was wrong (now to just fix the darn thing), and went to all my classes. Discovered I'm not stupid in calculus anymore: I had just forgotten nearly everything over the summer. But some crammed reading and a lot of practice problems have brought me back up to speed. We even learned something "new" that I already learned. I'm finding in a lot of my classes that I was prepped very well for college, even learning college material in some of them.

I also had my first human event class. Pickus is definitely an interesting fellow, but I think I understand how he processes his thoughts. Plus, he gives out A+. That's like the fourth class I have that does that. I'm not saying I'm going to get one in all of those classes, but I think one would be kind of nice. Let's just see which one I can do it in.

My butt hurts from my bike seat, but boy is that thing saving me some time. I crossed campus in like five minutes, under heavy traffic. It makes it nice, knowing I'll get there early with enough time to find a seat and not have to be worried about barging in late.

Like Ramesh did in human event yesterday. Our suitemate Aly has Pickus right before me, then I go, and then Ramesh is supposed to have the class after mine. So, imagine my surprise when she comes crashing in a half hour late into my class, breathless and panicked and hurriedly grabbing a chair to sit down in.

She looked at the time wrong.

That was probably the most interesting part of the day for me. So, we'll see how today goes, seeing as it's just six hours of classes with very small passing breaks in between. Thank goodness they are all close together around the same buildings.

Today was pretty mundane. Which, being Sunday, wasn't that unexpected. I enjoyed it. I didn't manage to fix my bike, sadly, but I can still ride it, I just have to be careful in a crowd. I still haven't heard from Discover. The bastards. I'm going to seriously have to call someone about this loan issue.

Biggest accomplishments today? Mom was kind enough to drop my fridge and text books off to my dorm, as was grandpa, thanks guys! I rearranged my room a bit to accommodate it, and proceeded to wake Ramesh up with my unpacking. But seriously, it was around eleven by that point. Stop sleeping. That was all done, and we decided to finally take out the growing pile of move-in and Target shopping trash that mostly consisted of boxes and product packaging. Our room is so clean and organized now; I love it.

I finished my calculus homework early today! It isn't due until Wednesday, but now I have that time to work on other things (fixing bike, cough). Also, I joined another club, some sort of satellite volunteer/internship club that works with satellites and data and things. First meeting is this week. I'm super excited.

I'm also looking forward to my first human event class. It's a requirement of honors students, and it sort teaches one to analyze, debate, and write arguments along with reading critically and applying those ideas to current events. I didn't have it last week, unfortunately, but tomorrow is the first time I have the chance to meet my professor. I picked him because he is very involved in Asian studies, including trips overseas. My thinking was become good friends with him, make sure he remembers my name, and maybe I'll get the chance to go abroad with him on a school trip.

The final piece of excitement to my day would have to be the gym. I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I am. Maybe I was remembering PE, which was for a grade and seeking the approval of the teacher for said grade. It was not fun. But now, I dunno, I'm looking forward to gym days now. My only thought is because I'm doing it for me, and not for anyone else; not for a grade, but just to feel better and fitter. Meredith and I did a different set of weightlifting today, and while it isn't as bad as the first time I went with her, I'm starting to feel the soreness in my muscles. She said she enjoys making me hurt, and I kind of like it too. It's a good pain. I will say that she was impressed with my leg strength on this one machine.

She better be, I was doing leg workouts over summer.

But I am finishing the day with laundry and Chinese homework, while I type this up. It's a lot better than the first time I came to the laundry room. For one thing, everyone here seems capable of doing their own washing. No questions were asked of me tonight, yay. You'd think, these kids being the tops of their classes and getting into a super competitive honors college, they'd have some knowledge of basic life skills. I guess not. A lot of them can't cook either. It's a little depressing. Instead of the college 101 class (learning how to be successful in college: note taking, paper writing, etc) these children should take Living 101. How to cook basic human sustaining food, clean your clothes without ruining them all, and how to fix things with a simple tool set. Seriously people.

I really should get to bed. I have class tomorrow. But not at 7 in the morning. Ahahaha.

Today was very uneventful. It was kind of nice. Everything was so crazy lately the day to laze around was very welcome. I worked on some homework, realized I was entering an answer wrong on the computer which was the main cause of my frustration, and finally managed to finish most of it. I still have a little to do, but I figure I can save that for tomorrow, or I'll have absolutely nothing to do.

For essentially the entire day Ramesh and I stayed in our room. It wasn't until it got dark that I ventured out to eat some dinner, and then we headed down to the volleyball court right outside our dorm. For nearly failing PE in my freshman year, I was surprisingly decent at it. Meaning I didn't hit anyone and I actually contributed to my team.

Although I was tackled by someone and it kind of hurt a little.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the college wanted even more money from me. Seriously, either tell me up front all the extra fees and junk you people will be expecting from me, or give me more financial aid. Why am I being punished for wanting a higher education? Why can't college be free like high school? Ugh, I shouldn't be worrying about financial issues on top of all my school work.

And once more, I am ending the day with a party in the room. A bunch of friends we had been playing with hanging out around my dorm, and we're just sort of chilling. People are walking up and down the hall to frat parties and the like, but I feel pretty sure that our little parties are way more fun than anything we're "missing" at those sorts of things.

Here's to hoping tomorrow is just as lazy as today, with some productivity sprinkled in. Like fixing my bike brake once I find someone with tools. And setting up my fridge. I think a celebratory ice cream shopping spree will be in order once I have it up and running.

It was raining this morning. That was certainly exciting. The most amusing part was watching people try and figure out how they could possibly walk to class without melting. I don't have an umbrella myself. In fact, I can't even remember the last time I owned an umbrella. Or a rain coat.

But I made it to the first class of the day intact and unscathed, so I suppose I must be waterproof. However, Calculus II was a bit of a shock to me. I'm not entirely sure if there was a gap between what I learned and where they want me to be, or if I just literally forgot everything over my huge three month summer, but I nearly had a panic attack. There was a warm-up on the board I had very little understanding of, so I believed it to be a preface to the day's lesson. Nope. It was a review. I foresee a lot of self studying, review, and tutoring assistance in my future until I catch up to the class.

Then began the long four hour wait between classes. I plan on using this time for math homework, but seeing as I didn't really get any, I had to spend it with Tristan puttering around the Student Union. I figured out the last bits of credit hours for majoring/doubling/minoring in various things, so we'll see what my adviser has to say later on.

Chinese was again amazingly amusing. My teacher is very antsy, and you wouldn't think him proficient in Mandarin just looking at him, but the TA came in and he just started blasting chinese at her. It was quite impressive. Then came the actual learning of sounds and letters. Romanization of chinese is very difficult to a casual english speaker. It definitely showed in some of the other students attempts at pronunciation. I may or may not have an unfair advantage, having studied chinese briefly before. But that doesn't make it any less funny to watch and listen to.

Getting home wasn't bad, until I discovered that in my time away from the computer my calc teacher assigned homework. It isn't too bad, I just had a few issues with some of the later problems, which will be dealt with tomorrow. I'm tired of looking at numbers. Leaving the computer, I found my roommate Ramesh and Miggy our neighbor sprawled on the floor with tons of silver strings around them. They were trying to restring her guitar, and it wasn't going as planned.

How many honors engineering students does it take to restring a guitar?

Seven, apparently, because that's how many offered input that didn't resolve the problem at all. This is just another thing to be added to the busy list of the weekend. When will we just be able to enjoy the small vacations between weekdays? Oh right, in four years when school is done. For some people. I don't think I'm ever leaving school. This is just too exciting.


Oh, and a informal tally of my classes:
Intro to Engineering - 40 people, 5 girls
Calculus II - 30 people, 5 girls
Chinese - 14 people, 4 girls
Physics - 150+ people, about 1/3 girls.

What is up with this? Seriously, ladies, science is fun.

I STARTED COLLEGE TODAY.

In other news, I hurt all over. And it is nearly impossible to bend my legs, so walking up and down the stairs, as well as biking all over the place, made today very fun. I don't think I'll be able to do any lifting tomorrow. :(

I woke up early. So early. Like always. I woke up before my suite mates, who had to get to an early class. Bah. But that gave me time to really get ready, and actually try to figure out just where my classes were. It doesn't look that big on a map. In person: every thing is so spread out and far away. And the map doesn't tell you the foot traffic of every street.

But, being early, it was relatively easy to bike to my first class. I left a little early to get a feel for the timing, and good thing too. They seemed to just randomly draw numbers from a hat and label the rooms that. There was absolutely no logic to the order of the rooms, and it took me nearly fifteen minutes just to find the room. And the professor came in flustered and almost late. When the professor can't even find their room, you know you've failed your job labeling the directory. In the same train of thought, there were only three other girls in the class besides me. In a class of 40. This is going to be an interesting semester.

Then I went to see my adviser to officially change my major in the system. No one told me that their offices were just a pile of paint cans and loose dry wall. Their office was on the completely opposite end of the campus. I threw my hands in the air in exasperation, garnered a few quizzical looks from passerby for my efforts, and resigned myself to an early lunch at the food court. Never again. Anywhere that isn't the honors food court apparently tastes awful, so I guess I'm hiking all the way back from class so I can eat proper food.


After food was a long time to kill, which I spent wandering with Tristan, as there were literally no tables available for us to sit at. There is an awful ratio of sitting room to the sheer number of students. But we eventually parted ways so that I could head to my physics class. It was huge. And pretty awesome. The professor is pretty cool, and I discovered that it is in fact possible to earn an A+. That is now my life's goal. Because I reviewed the notes and realized that I already know a bulk of the information, so now it's just refining and honing my physics skills. All too soon it was over, but I headed over to Chinese, excited to finally have a class with someone I actually know.

My Chinese professor is quite possibly the sassiest hipster I have ever seen. He joked and made light conversation, and I think this is going to be a very amusing class. This was my smallest class today, and will probably be the smallest out of all of them: only twelve people. Not even my honors class, planned to be small, is that tiny. Again, though, there are almost no girls. This ratio is getting a little ridiculous.

On my way home to the dorm, I discovered that my bike brake was broken. That made for some tricky maneuvering through the crowds until I ultimately decided to just walk it. I probably could have navigated the crowd, but with my main brake gone I wasn't sure I could stop an accident from happening. I will definitely have to look at it this weekend. So I crossed the entire campus on foot, until I made it to what has to be, hands down, the coolest building the university has.

The Earth and Space Exploration building is brand spanking new, and it shows. Everything is lit up, projecting current missions and future missions; there was a room lined with windows that was dedicated to the Curiosity rover where people manipulate data coming in from the probe. The third floor common area had a carpet that was a patch work of pictures of various craters on the moon. Like I said, I almost just wanted to wander the buildings. But I had business to attend to. My major is now officially changed, but sadly I cannot declare any majors or minors until sophomore year. My counselor said doubling engineering majors is extremely hard, and that she's only had two people successfully do it. I'm going to be the third.

I'm torn between doubling my mechanical degree with astronautical engineering, or if I should pair it with Earth and Space Exploration, which is essentially NASA in degree form. I have some time to think about it, which is nice, but I need to decide soon so I can declare it and plan out the next few years.

And finally, the status of my student loans is extremely annoying. They paused my approval because apparently asking for only a fall term loan was crazy, seeing as I am a full year student. ASU already disburses any private loans in two parts, which I had not known before. You think they would have alerted me to the reason behind the hold up sooner than now. There's another thing to be done this weekend. Oh well. Over all, today was a good day, and I can't wait for tomorrow, and for the rest of the year. I have the strangest feeling that I am going to really enjoy college.

So, classes start tomorrow. I'm so giddy I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to sleep. But today was kind of busy, so we'll see how tired I really am once I crash into bed.

First things first, I went to the gym again today. But today, instead of just doing some piddly cardio workouts, Meredith introduced me to weight lifting. Like, the heavy bars that they use in the Olympics and such. She taught me how to squat, which is apparently a very posture specific workout that was hard to get right even without the bar. And the bar without any weights was heavier than I expected. It was a very strenuous workout, and I kind of hurt all over, but a good kind of hurt. I can't wait till Friday, when we go again. This workout is an every other day sort of affair.

I did laundry today, and apparently so did every other kid in the dorms. Every washer and dryer was occupied when I got there, but somehow Meredith and I managed to snag a few for our clothing. Although, it was amusing to help the other kids who were doing laundry for the very first time. "Can I put this with my whites?" "Why do I have to sort them?" "Is there just a 'Clean' button I can press? All these choices are confusing."

That took a good chunk of the afternoon, but aside from the small panic attack of thinking someone had stolen my clothes (they were just placed on a laundry table so someone could use the dryer when my load was finished, whew) it was a pretty mundane chore. It rained again this afternoon, as I discovered when I ventured out to meet my friends for our last hurrah dinner before things get hectic.

The thai place we tried was okay, convenient in the fact that it is literally across the street from my dorms, but not nearly as good as the place we found during Comicon. But that's besides the point. Dinner was kind of early so we could head down to the club fair, which was a little interesting, I suppose. I mean, I wasn't that interested in a lot of clubs, except for one or two. I did look into the Photography club, as I couldn't fit a class into my schedule this semester; and Quiz Bowl piqued my interest so we'll see how that pans out.

Other than that, I'm not really interested in a lot of the extracurricular activities they have on campus. Guess I'll have to start my own clubs. :)

Arizona is just too damn hot. I had all sorts of freshman orientations today, and the humidity was awful. I must have sweated like five gallons today. It's amazing how much the heat just saps away your will to move. I kind of vegged out for about an hour, regaining the strength necessary to go down to dinner.

In other news, my room has been remodeled and I now have a sitting room under my bed. It makes me super excited. I can read books and drink tea and kick my feet up while curled up under a blanket. My fridge is coming, my books are coming, and classes start in less than two days. The excitement is mounting.

I forgot to mention, I joined the rocket club today. They are named Daedalus, which appeals to my inner english major but I won't regale you with the myth behind the club name. So, maybe in a few weeks I'll be able to make things blow up and exit the atmosphere. Some of the videos they were playing at the booth were pretty exciting.

Weather rolled in, and took over every conversation in the dorms, but the lightning and the thunder just make me so happy while drinking a hot mug of tea inside. Tomorrow is going to be busy, with a club fair and a job fair and a dinner date with all my friends as a final hurrah before classes start. So this post won't be as long because I actually want to sleep tonight.

On the plus side, I went to the gym today. My running shoes feel amazing.

So, I may or may not have been sucked into downloading one game. But it will NOT distract me. It is going to be a strictly weekend amusement. Other than that, my morning was uneventful. There was a meeting for all the Barrett students, and we were forced to march all the way over to the Gammage theatre. The dean said a few words, and most of the faculty and speeches and advice given were what I've been hearing since freshman year in high school.

However, the students were getting restless as well and retaliated with some snarky applause. Instead of a long round of it, a single, simultaneous, booming clap was given after every introduction. It was brilliant. I love smart kids.

After that the day was free to us to do as we please. Lunch was delicious, I expanded my social circle a little more (I must have made at least fifteen friends in the past three days), and finally found Skye's room. We hung out, loitered in her room, and I discovered that her room mate is actually from China! Study buddy? I think yes.

Speaking of Chinese, some classes released syllabi today. Whilst reading the chinese class one, I initially thought nothing of it. Then I cam across a few nuggets of pure awesome. I think I'm going to enjoy this professor.

"No make-ups will be given, but you will be allowed four “free absences” during the semester. These absences can be for any reason, be it illness, university excused absence, military service, trips to Sedona, or free cupcakes at Sprinkles, but you only get four so use them wisely."


"Each absence past the initial four will be counted as zeros and will lower your overall average (zeros are the silent killers in average mathematics. Avoid them like ninjas with acid squirt-guns, also the ninjas are accountants)."

I mean, what? Thank you, professor, for being human and humorous. I am legitimately excited to meet you.

Then it was dinner, some more hanging out, playing a little bit of my newly downloaded game. And then my room mate returned to play on her Xbox. With gunfire and shouts pouring out of our open door into the hallway, we quickly established a presence on our floor as the gaming room to be. People poked their heads in, grinned when they realized what we were playing, a few were even bold enough to come in and join us in our shooting of pixelated terrorists.

A good hot cup of tea later, we hunkered down to wait out the storm so Skye could go back to her own room (which, sadly, is not in my building or even in the complex). I bought some amazing celestial apple cinnamon spice tea that I absolutely love (hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink).

And I am genuinely looking forward to the rest of the week, which hopefully will give me more exciting things to write about. Here's hoping my chinese teacher is just as crazy in person as she is on the computer.

I am an early riser. Always have been. No one in my suite wakes up before 8. You wouldn't believe how quiet a dorm can get when absolutely no one else in the dorm is awake, and how absolutely reverberating a noise can sound no matter how hard you try to be quiet. So, I did the only sensible thing I could do: plugged in my headphones, turned the computer on, and watched a movie. Even the light clicks of my keyboard, which I normally find so soothing, were crashing and jarring in the heavy silence that blanketed my room.

Thankfully, one other person in my building wakes up early, so around 9 (by this point I had already been awake for three hours. Go figure) I got ready and trotted downstairs with banana bread while she made me tea. We talked, and watched people move in while we sipped culture from a mug (even though she makes tea horribly. No milk? And honey instead of sugar? Blasphemy!). But then she had to leave, and then I wandered back to my room to find my roommate awake finally. I don't know how she could sleep for that long, but that thought was quickly driven from my mind by our suitemates....innovational solution to their bare windows.

They tore their moving boxes apart and plastered the tattered remains all over the window.

It was amusing to say the least.

Wandering took over most of my day, exploring the campus and just mingling with people I will be living with for the next year. Found the gym, and a huge computer lab, and even one of my classrooms. Bothered my friend, and then more friends appeared, and we started our politically incorrect game once more (which is about a billion times better with a multitude of people). That lasted, unsurprisingly, for a few hours. By this point, we all realized we were hungry and ate as an actual group, not by myself in my room.

And Barrett has a huge club fair that is full of water games while every single group tries to buy you with small toys and candy. It was amusing for a moment, but we quickly retired to the dorms. Once again, our room has become the central hub of excitement and socializing. I like it. These people are charming, intelligent, humorous, and just all around pretty relaxed. They aren't trying to keep appearances up, they aren't fake or throwing themselves around for attention like in high school.

If the classes are anything like the people in terms of change, this is going to be a very refreshing year indeed.

For now we are just waiting the day away until we can go and ravage the Target. Then we will come home with our treasures and settle in and await the start. And maybe I'll actually learn to sleep in this year, seeing as none of my classes start before 9. But I'm going to eat better, and go to the gym, and I'm going to just be so much better this year. A new start. I'm excited.

Whew. College is here. I moved in, I found my room mate, I am waiting for an adventure. This is what I have been waiting for since sixth grade, and to be honest, I'm just getting started. Classes start soon, my books are on their way,  and I'm ending the day in my bed while new friends and familiar faces mingle laughter with music. Already the atmosphere is relaxed, and I couldn't ask for anything better.

The day started off interesting. I kept trying to pack my boxes, but I would find something I wanted to pack. In desperation, I would look for another box so I could bring everything. But then that box would look empty and I would search despairingly for more stuff to fill it, before finding too much to pack and needing yet another box. I was caught in a vicious cycle, and it showed no signs of stopping.

I managed to contain myself long enough to finally tape up what I had and load it in the car once my mom returned from being busy. The universe decided to converge everything important onto one day, so it was certainly....trying. In a very long, very uneventful drive up, we managed to get to the freshman registration without any incidence. After dodging every free offer and soul sucking survey purveyor, I managed to extricate myself long enough to actually move into my room.

Loft beds are probably the trickiest thing to make, ever. How do I monkey up to put the farthest corner on the mattress? But my mom and I managed the job, and then after a few pictures and an introduction to my awesome room mate (more on her later), then I was alone. I tidied up after myself, hung my clothes, unpacked my boxes, and waited.

Friends came by, and we wandered, and we parted ways, and different friends appeared. We scoured for food and found an amazing marketplace attendant. And then came the most awkward but fantastic, politically incorrect, card game I have ever come across: Cards Against Humanity. That devolved into a tea party with How to Train Your Dragon playing in the background. People came and left, and some people are probably going to turn into great friends.

But my room mate.She is definitely going to become a great friend. I think she must be a clone of me, but they accidentally poured a concentrated dose of awesome in her clone tank. We were both anxious before meeting, after talking over the internet. Neither of us had wanted a roommate, and we were concerned about the partying habits of the other. What we discovered was that we were both obsessed with schoolwork and grades, loved to play instruments, and enjoyed kicking back to the same video games. Did I mention she brought an Xbox and like 3 monitors? Yeah, this girl is one cool cat.

And now I am here, listening to people exchange the guitar and fill the room with small talk and music and just being all around awesome. My neighbors are courteous, funny, and gamers,my room mate is the coolest thing in this dorm, and I think I'm ready for my adventure now. Let the games begin.