Parfait Day

Today was spent learning the Cornell campus. I awoke at 8:15 after going to bed at two, hit Snooze several times, and was up by nine to take my first shower at Cornell. I then dressed and applied sunscreen quickly before heading down to the laundry room to meet Jun. Using Jun's ID card (I paid her back in cash, since I hadn't loaded money into the laundry section of my ID), we washed a load of laundry each. We then started our dryers and went to meet our cohort at about 11:00 for an early lunch. I, having skipped breakfast, ate a waffle, potatoes, and coffee, and then had a small bowl of delicious vegan red lentil soup. 

North Balch laundry facilities

After breakfast, Jun and I returned to the laundry room, where our dryers had just finished. I was disappointed to see that while spilled food had been removed from various articles of clothing, a lot of dirt was still in my socks. It was as if the dirt had been set in rather than washed out. I'll have to try again soon, but at least my first load of laundry here at Cornell was a partial success. 

Soon after we brought our laundry back to our dorms, it was time to leave for the scheduled scavenger hunt. I met my floor in a lounge room, was told that we had another few minutes to wait, ran back to my dorm to change shoes and apply more sunscreen and change backpacks, and eventually left with my floormates and RCAs to wait for the other buildings on the closest lawn. Two groups of students, one female and one male, came with their RCAs from their buildings to join us. After introductions, we set out to see the major buildings on campus. At the health center, some students had to finalize their immunizations, so the rest of us made posters for our floors. We then moved to a large lawn space, where we split into groups to introduce ourselves, then coalesced again to play bonding games such as a giant tournament of rock-paper-scissors, where the losing student became his former opponent's cheerleader, and another version of rock-paper-scissors where a whole team had to decide whether to be a giant, wizard, or dwarf. This was a bit of a failure; both teams kept choosing the same way. After a bathroom break we played a singing game: the RCAs provided a word, and each dorm group had twenty seconds to sing at least two lines of a song containing that word. Eventually, the rules changed, and two hall teams competed to see who could come up with a song faster. I am proud to say that North Balch Hall was declared the winner with no debate at all. 

After seeing more buildings, we were released at about three. Kevin, Jun, and I met up for another trip to Target. There I bought a one-dollar cup to hold my toothbrush and flosser and a couple of other forgotten necessities. Upon our return, we had dinner. I had a salad full of beans as I did last night, plus a banana and a bit of rainbow pasta. I also had chocolate soft-serve, in which the cocoa powder is visible. It was the best chocolate soft-serve I've ever had. 

Activities Fair

After dinner, my cohort and I descended one floor and entered the multi-purpose room of the Robert Purcell Community Center to see the Activities Fair. I had decided against adding activities while at Cornell because of my heavy reading and blogging schedule, but Sue and I did sign up for yoga, which will happen once a week on Monday evenings. At the Fair we were all hoping to receive our free Summer College t-shirts, but they were not there. So Kevin, Sue, Carla, and I made plans to meet up early tomorrow morning to walk to class and returned to our dorms. There I worked on my room descriptions for Don until it was time for the 7:00 optional Parfait Hunt, which involved receiving an ingredient to a yogurt parfait from each of the RCAs in the building, reviewing one building rule at each stop. The goal was for us to learn where we could find an RCA on every floor. My parfait, made of strawberry yogurt and fruit, turned blue because it also contained m&ms, but remained delicious. 

Once done with the Parfait Hunt, I continued working on my room descriptions until finished. At eleven Chloe and I went downstairs for the nightly check-in.

Tomorrow at nine I start college for real. I'm not nervous yet, only excited. I've met just a few of my twenty-nine classmates outside of my cohort, so there will be many more names to remember. I want to know who the people in the class are and why they chose Freedom and Justice. I suppose I'll find out soon. In the meantime, it's still rather early and I can sleep in preparation for a big day.