The Early Bird Gets the Worm

Today was the first day during this trip where I had the chance to wake up on my own terms. Yesterday night I decided that I would sleep in today and have breakfast during the dining hall lunch. Let's just say that didn't go as planned, though it all worked out in the end. Normally I consider sleeping in to be noon, but for the sake of soaking up as much as possible on this trip I set my alarm for 10 AM. I ended waking up at 8, which is very early for me. I blame my dorm's mattress. I wish I would've thought of bringing a mattress pad before leaving for the trip. After waking up much earlier than expected, I decided to relax for a bit and then to get my day started early. This worked out because nobody was up at this time and I got the bathroom to myself. Of course this means a very nice and quiet shower. After showering I got ready to head out to breakfast with my next door neighbor and Lynda. Our dining hall, The Ratty, served pretty good food with various options, we had a great time bonding over our brunch. Besides the uncomfortable mattress, the morning thus far went very well.

After breakfast the cohort, whom we met at The Ratty, and I all headed to the Van Wickle Gates to take our group picture in our new Brown merchandise. This was very fun as we came up with something pretty creative to do for it. Hopefully I will have the picture by tomorrow!

Meeting everybody on Buxton floor three.

We headed over to the student orientation after we finished taking our picture. We decided to sit front and center. The two dorm residence directors gave us rules and information we might need for our stay and then broke us into groups by our RA.

My RA Christine had a bunch of ice breakers and games prepared for us. All the activities truly allowed my floor mates and I to get to know each other much better. I feel a lot more comfortable with everybody in my hall and can't wait to build great friendships with them. We also received a tour from Christine, most of it I saw from my Friday tour but it was really nice hearing Christine's perspective and input on things. We then headed to dinner and I sat with my floor mates and had a great time bonding even more with them.

Lynda and I dancing at the fair.

Shortly after I finished eating I headed out with Lynda and our new friends Ariel and Tanzin. We walked around campus and eventually made it to the activity fair. At the fair we got some really great and, most importantly, free frozen lemonade as well as danced to some of the music they played. Lynda signed me up for the Hispanic/Latino club with her and Krystal at the fair. The three of us also joined the Women's Club. I'm so stoked to attend their meetings this week and to interact with some more pre-college and college students.

We then had to leave the fair to make it to rent fans for our dorms from Wayland Hall. All the girls got their fans and we headed back to our dorms to have a meeting with each of our residence advisors and neighbors. My floor all headed down to a lounge that is in the basement. Once again we got to have some ground rules laid out for us and get to know a lot more about each other. We went back upstairs a little before 11 to get ready for the first day of our classes. Tomorrow is when the fun really begins.