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.