a new adventure

Well this one might not involve a foreign language, but I'm in a new place again and starting a new school again. It's kind of like being back in Bonn, but I understand everyone! :) I just finished up my Teaching Assistantship orientation workshop stuff for the week. It's been pretty boring, although there were some pretty good tips about teaching and how to connect with students. I never realized the syllabus was such an important piece of paper... I now have more respect for my professors, it's an intense job to get ready to teach a class. All I have to do as a student is show up. But I'm really excited about class starting. I've had the chance to socialize a bit, but this orientation had close to 600 people in it, so hard to make any lasting acquaintances. However, I did manage to sit down in the middle of a group of chemistry PhD students, and once they found out I was an English major they asked me what every other word in the presentation meant. (For example, pedagogy, and ombudsperson.)

Tomorrow I will be moving into my apartment in Foxridge. Well, my second apartment. The one I was originally going to move into turned out to be a dump. The place was pretty gross and there was an outstanding balance on the previous lease of the apartment, so I was unable to sign a new lease with the remaining girls living there. So that was sad. I moved all my furniture in only to move out a few days later. But now I've found an apartment with a fellow grad student, a 24yr old female, Becky, who is a vet student. We have a 2 bedroom place. I've already met her parents and they seem like really nice people. She seems to want the same exact stuff I do from a roommate, so I'm thinking it's going to work out great.

Friday I have my English Department orientation stuff, so I will be able to report on meeting my fellow English MA students and GTAs. That's the day I'm most looking forward to. We'll all have most of the same classes this first semester, so I'm thinking this will most likely be my core group of friends. I went today and filled out my tax paperwork and had my picture taken for the department website. The building just happens to be in the middle of the ROTC dorms and buildings, so as I was walking to and from, there were plenty of uniformed ROTC members marching drills on the lawn in all directions. We'll see how that goes!

I've quite enjoyed living with Uncle Steve, Tucker, and Dusty this past week or so. I got to send Dusty off to his first day of high school today. And we get to pack Tucker up and help him move into college this weekend. I'm pretty excited, I loved moving in as a college freshman. It's like the whole world is open to you and lying at your feet. And you get lots of free t-shirts.

Well I'm headed for bed. I've had to wake up at 6am for the past two days! And I'll do it again tomorrow to pack Dusty a lunch and send him off to school for his second day! :) I love school...