First Day Adventures

A miracle happened today. For the first time in weeks, I was able to wake up by myself, without the help of my alarm. I got out of bed at 8:00 today and went directly to the bathroom to take a shower. I really like the bathrooms here, they are well-lit and very clean. After showering, I went down to the lounge to retrieve my room key, as well as my schedule, ID, and some free goodies.

Following the official check-in, I met up with Katelyn and her friend Katie and we walked around campus a bit. Then we decided to meet up with the rest of the cohort outside of Natalie and Jun's hall, North Balch. We all hung out for a bit outside of the hall but then decided we should just go back to our dorms. At this point, I noticed that my room mate had arrived since she left her belongings, but she was nowhere to be found. For the next hour I wrote most of my room description but there are things I still need to ask my RCA about. 

Mine and Grace's door.

Not too long after, my roommate Grace came into the room very quickly with her dad. She's from Hong Kong and she's going to be in the Hotel Management course. Even though she's from Hong Kong, however, she goes to an American School and doesn't speak Chinese, since she's originally from Singapore. After meeting, she left with her dad again.

At 11:00 we all met up at the RPCC to have lunch. The cohort all sat there as well as their roommates and some other friends we made from our building yesterday. I had pasta with meat sauce and garlic bread. The pasta was well-cooked and the meat sauce was tasty, but what I most enjoyed was the garlic bread. It was very soft on the inside and the garlic favor was prominent, but not too strong.

After lunch, we went to Target with Mr. Chan-Law to purchase things we might need for our dorms. I purchased things such as shampoo, conditioner, razors, air freshener, and hangers. It's really convenient that the Target is so close since we travel from such a long distance and we can't carry everything with us, and I'm glad Mr. Chan-Law could take us today.

Walking to the Dean's Convocation.

We didn't take too long at Target, so I had time to put my new things away and hang my clothes in the closet. As soon as I put my belongings away, it was time for me to meet up with Kevin to go to our Convocation at Bailey Hall. We walked with his friend Yanzen, from Hawaii, to the hall. It took a while and we got a little lost, but we made it on time. 

The convocation was great to be a part of. The Summer College director, Jim Schechter, was the main speaker. He gave us all a warm welcome and spoke to us and the parents about how we will have a great time here. He also spoke about the dangerous gorges around campus and how it is absolutely prohibited to swim in them since there have been students that died in the gorges. Another professor also spoke and he gave us a great speech about long presentations and how we're going to enjoy our time here at Summer College. Soon after his speech, the convocation was over and we all went to our class orientations.

Inside Bailey Hall at the convocation.

The Freedom and Justice orientation was brief but enjoyable. Professor Kramnick spoke to us about different aspects of Ithaca and Cornell and also about our course. He is a great speaker and I can tell I will love his class. He seems very passionate about the subjects he teaches and I'm very grateful that I will be attending his final Summer College course. During the orientation, one of the parents mentioned that he had attended this same class during his freshman year at Cornell 30 years ago, with Professor Kramnick. His son must feel a great connection with his dad knowing that he is taking the same class that he did.

One of the beautiful, but dangerous gorges.

When orientation was over, I walked back to my dorm and showed it to Kevin and Natalie. They left after a few minutes and by that time we had to go to dinner. My roommate Grace walked into the dorm right as I was leaving, so we went to dinner together and sat with the rest of our group. For dinner, I had a cheeseburger and fries. The cheeseburger wasn't overcooked or undercooked and there was a good amount of condiments for the burger. The fries were also seasoned beautifully and weren't burnt or soggy.

After dinner, there was an Ice Cream Social where all 1,000 of the Summer College students gathered to eat ice cream and meet each other. There was strawberry, chocolate and strawberry ice cream for us to choose from. I chose strawberry ice cream and although it lacked a bit of flavor, the texture of it was amazing. It was very creamy and not melted at all, even though we were outside. I met a few girls from my building, two of whose names were Lucy and Alexa. Grace and I decided to leave early and hang out in our dorm for the rest of the night.

So far we have left our room to go to our floor meeting. There, the RCAs went over our house rules and then conducted an icebreaker activity for us to meet our floormates. There, I met a girl named Jessa who is actually from Oakland and knows one of my friends, since they go to the same school. Such a small world!

Another view of the gorge.

It is now almost midnight and we just finished our night check. We will do this every night that we are here. From Sunday through Thursday, it will be at 10:50 and on Friday and Saturday it will be at 11:50. The whole hall meets in the lobby with the RCAs so we can let them know that we are still in the building.

Now that that's over, it's time to sleep and be well rested for tomorrow.