Can't Wait for Tuesday

Dining commons at Purcell.

I got a sufficient amount of sleep today, which I deem above five hours. My cohort, Chan-Law and I planned to meet at the Purcell building (the dining halls) at around 10:30 AM. I woke up at around 8 AM, and then fell asleep again and woke up around 9:45 AM. Upon realization, I did not kick it into high-gear and took my time to get ready by taking a shower, grooming myself and whatever guys with time do in the morning (which isn't very much since we are very subtle creatures in the morning). When we all got to Purcell I got a mountain of food just like last time and indulged. I realized that the meal schedule of Cornell (for summer college students) is way different from my regular day back in Hercules. Breakfast is served from 7:00 AM to 10:30 AM, with lunch immediately starting after and ending at 2:00 PM and dinner is served from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. I as a teenager happen to get very hungry after seven and resort to going to the small snack store called "Bear Necessities" or Target (beforehand) to buy snacks.

The grid game I described.

When we came back to our dorms, there wasn't much time to do anything before the mandatory scavenger hunt was to take place. Our floor RCA's are a bit unorganized and called a meeting literally five minutes before they were going to take us to the scavenger hunt and thus only reeled in about half of the 44 students on the floor (I heard other halls told their residents to meet a day in advance). Well Solomon (my RCA) took a group of our remaining floor to a place near Bailey Hall and we ended up doing nothing for an entire half-hour because nothing was set up. Eventually they put us to play a game on two lawns where we had to make a giant line and step on a grid of 8x8 tiles where we had to guess on each step which was the correct path. Although once you hit a wrong square then you had to travel to the back of the line and the next person proceeds--basically a game of memory until a person finishes the entire thing. 

Cornell student explaining the rules of Assassin

Later on we went to another station where we were placed in a giant circle with everyone and threw a rubber fish at each other and said our names. The point of the exercise was to learn everyone's names and socialize. Later on we played a game where we had to run around a triangular area and socialize with each other. Then we played another game where some people were selected to be policemen and others to be assassins (all appointed when everyone's eyes were closed), then we all walked around in a cluster as assassins killed with winks and cops arrested the assassins (if they could identify them). I was a cop, and towards the end we had to identify the assassins amongst the surviving people through examination. It was still a fairly large crowd and I managed to identify the last two assassins while others guessed wrong. 

We played some other games as well, all meant to socialize, including one where we merged two groups into a giant circle and an individual had to dictate a dance in the middle for everyone to follow. Surprisingly enough it was all fun and games, yet no scavenger hunt. They did not teach us any of the buildings and didn't tell us how to go back to our dorms. Although they succeeded in the socializing aspect, for I met Lizzy and Renea from this very state, Nathan from Senegal, Ryan from Los Angeles, Fan from Hong Kong, Johnston from Monterrey, California and many other students from across the country and world.

Dinner time at Purcell

They cut the scavenger hunt an hour early and let us free. Some of our cohort needed to go to Target for some items we forgot to purchase there from our last visit. I contacted Mr. Chan-Law and he said he would meet us up at the parking lot. Jun, Natalie and I all went to Target through the taxi services of Mr. Chan-Law. I just bought a water container (for whenever I'm thirsty on campus or don't have any beverages in my dorm), an eight pack of sierra-mist soda, a fifteen pack of  bottled water (for whenever I want cold water when coming back to my dorm because there's a fridge in my room) and a box of white cheddar Cheez-Its.

After dinner, we all decided to visit the activities fair that was going on at the Purcell building's multi-purpose room and found that there were many organizations to join, with so little time. At this time it was only sign-ups for information. I signed up for soccer, diversity council and wizzleball. What the last one I signed up for, I'm not quite sure what it is, but the RCA of the bottom floor knows me by name and coaxed me into signing up for it (another reason I signed up was because no one signed up for her club either). 

I was practically dead after the workout in my dorm.

When we drove back there was one last major obstacle to overcome and that was of laundry. Luckily I had Carla and Katelyn to help me out on this. I took my two bags of laundry to the basement facility where they told me to meet them. There we just threw all of our clothes into a washer and decided we weren't going to stay there forever and decided to go jogging for a bit. We jogged around the lawn in front of Helen Newman Hall twice, and then over a long footbridge, up a hill, across a very large car bridge (that leads back into north campus), up a hill, some stairs and repeated the process with running through the Balch Hall courtyard. We did a whole lot of other exercises as well, including push-ups and squats. Then we went back to our own dorms to shower and change and in between Carla put the clothes into a dryer and everything was done. I am very well into both their gratitude and owe Carla three dollars because we used her Cornell ID Card to use the basement facility. 

As I'm writing the conclusion to this blog while eating Chobani Peach yogurt bought at Bear Necessities not too long ago, I think of tomorrow. This entire day, I was thinking of tomorrow. In fact, for quite a few months I was thinking about the first day of class. I know the class will be rigorous and time-consuming, but I know it'll be interesting and a good taste of college in three weeks. I'm familiar with many ancient philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, St. Augustine and more all thanks to my AP Language/Composition teacher of last year: Mr. Litvin--I thank him. Now it is time to go even more in depth with some of these philosophers and more. I'm just excited for tomorrow and ready to take on a new challenge at Goldwin Smith Hall tomorrow.