The First Week!

The first week at school included a lot of new roomie bonding (yay Sarah!) and unpacking/furnishing the new place. Rach and Dad and Lynda were enormously helpful the first few days, and we had a great time together exploring Durham and Duke. We unpacked, we visited the Duke Chapel, Cameron, the business school building, and Duke Gardens...despite the fact that it felt like it was about 150 degrees because it was so hot and humid that weekend! My dad built me a bike rack so Cannie (mtn bike) and Speedy (road bike) can stand in the corner of my room - there was no chance that I would be able to make something like this, but he had it whipped up in 20 minutes! 

 
Sarah and I decided to motivate ourselves to get the place furnished and ready, so we planned a housewarming party on Tuesday night 7/27 (we got into town on Thursday 7/22). Here are some photos of my apartment, kitchen and living room, before and during the party! We have concrete floors...I wasn't sure how I would feel about that, but they're kind of fun...and really tough to stain/hurt!

After the housewarming, Sarah headed out of town and I spent the rest of the week unpacking my room (the living room was ready for the party, but my room was still a mess of boxes at that point!) and doing pre-assignments for our pre-term classes. Orientation started at 8am on Sunday 8/1, and it was a whirlwind three days! We had a variety of speakers throughout the day - about programs, classes, career stuff, basically just an introduction to all aspects of the school. We were also grouped into our sections (the class of 450 is split into 6 sections of about 75 people) that we theoretically take core classes with and get to know a little better. I'm section 2 (GO DEUCE - there's a lot of section pride that happens here!!) and it's a great group! 

 

Roomie pic at the housewarming

We had parties each night that kept us out until 2am, and then sessions each day at 9am, so sleeping was minimal for those three days. 

The first night was the Around the World party, which basically meant that we were supposed to dress up like whatever place or thing we identify with...so some people wore sports jerseys for their home teams, some wore traditional clothes for where they're from. My class is 40% international, so there were definitely some cool outfits. I took inspiration from California Gurls (song) and went bikini on top...under a tank top, of course. It was a lot of fun! The next night was the 80's party...that one was a lot of fun. I think blinding is a fairly accurate description of my outfit.

80's party...clearly.

Around the World party...bikini on top!

We would, without fail, walk in to the  auditorium in the morning to the Taio Cruz song "Dynamite" blasting...at the time we kept wondering why they had that song on repeat, but at the end they told us that it's our "class song." It's a lot of fun, anytime we're out and that song comes on, everyone flips out and there is a mad dash for the dance floor. 

That's me in the business suit three-legged race...

Orientation ended with Section Olympics - we competed in things like the business suit 3 legged race, dizzy bat, flip cup (with water), and tug-of-war. It was so much fun! Dizzy bat was possibly one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. They had to spin something like 10 times on this bat, then run back and forth across the field. Now, 10 is a lot of times...every person, without fail, would put down the bat, stare straight ahead, and make a beeline to the left into the crowd. We were all gasping for air from laughing by the end of it! Here are a few pics of us there - the red t-shirts are section 2 (go deuce!!). 

We went right into pre-term from there on Wednesday, which meant two classes (Leadership and Ethics in Organizations and Global Institutions) plus an improv class which was actually a lot of fun! I wasn't sure what to expect from that, I had this vision of having to stand up and come up with a routine (which was a terrifying thought) but it turned out to be a lot of fun group exercises that helped us get to know each other and get comfortable with each other (think trust falls).

 

The weekend included another housewarming party and brunch at a yummy place called Watts Grocery. It was a great first week, so busy and lacking in sleep, but a great time. Those first weeks of meeting tons of people and making friends were so much fun!

Made It!

Five years, six applications, a LOT of cross-country trips via plane, one long cross-country trip via car, and endless hours of writing/worrying/dreaming/planning later.....

I'M HERE!!!!

And I love it. Really, really, love it. 

But since I'm a little late with this post, I'll back up again, at least to the beginning of the trip out here!  

Bright and early on Monday (July 19th), Rach and I set off east. We didn't get quite the running start we were hoping for - she missed her alarm because her phone turned off overnight, then I forgot to pick up my bikes at Jeni's on the way out so we had to backtrack...but all in all, we were solidly on the road by about 7:30a, which wasn't bad.

Of all the driving days, I would say the first day was second to worst. The desert can be pretty, but there is also a lot of flat brown nothing on that part of the drive. El Centro and the dilapidated little desert towns (that's probably a generous description) aren't exactly scenic. Some of it was beautiful, though - we took the route up through the mountains and Flagstaff, which was beautiful (see left). 

We did listen to a good book on CD, The Prometheus Deception by Robert Ludlum (he wrote the Bourne series, to give some context).

We cruised into Albuquerque, NM around 7:30p (long day!!) and were starving, so we threw our stuff in our rooms and set out for dinner. Unfortunately, by the time we left it was 9pm, and we were surprised to discover that Albuquerque, at least where we were, shuts down at 9pm. Unless we wanted McDonald's, we were out of luck for dinner. We called the hotel and found that their restaurant stayed open until 10p (rebels!) so we went there. It wasn't bad...after a day of road food, the salads we got tasted awesome. (To the right is more AZ scenery).

Day 2 was bottom of the list, driving-day wise. If you've never driven through Texas and surrounding areas on the 40, you're not missing much...it's flat, green/brown, and there is the occasional cluster of cows. That's about it. It's pretty, don't get me wrong, it's just the same for about 8 hours (to the left is a fairly representative picture of the entirety of the drive on Day 2). Luckily, this was the part of the drive where they liked their Dairy Queens every few miles like clockwork, so Rach and I drowned our boredom with that! Blizzards are YUM!

We listened to a book that day too, Big Love by Sarah Dunn. It was...different than we expected. Decidedly a chick book, and a little odd, but entertaining at least, which is really all we were looking for! We stopped that night in Fort Smith, AK. That was a bit of an adventure in itself...in our family, those hotels where you give some thought to how much of the room you're actually willing to touch are called crunchy carpet hotels (you can imagine why). We definitely stayed in one of those that night. We ran into the same issue with dinner...the whole losing an hour thing threw us off a bit. Fort Smith is not the pinnacle of night life, so most things were closed by 9:30p when we were looking for dinner. There was a Hooters nearby, though, so we decided that it was at least safe and had beer and decent food (wings!) so off we went. The waitress was fascinated by our accents, as were we by hers. 

On the drive from Fort Smith to Nashville...it was pretty!

The next day was a bit shorter; we drove into Nashville. Rach and I love country music, so we thought that would be a fun place to spend a night since neither of us had ever been there. We got lucky and got a great hotel within walking distance of the main downtown area with the fun bars and such, so we walked over for dinner. We started by having a killer BBQ dinner - it really was amazing. I'm looking forward to eating some awesome BBQ over the next couple of years down here! We went afterwards to Wildhorse Saloon and heard a live band, they were good! Next stop was Coyote Ugly, which was fun and included some interesting people watching.

The next morning, we got up for our final day of driving...into North Carolina!! That was a particularly interesting day, beginning with some torrential rain while we were driving through the mountains. The trip through the Smoky Mountains was absolutely beautiful...we have a ton of pictures, but I'll spare everyone and only post a couple.

We drove through Ashville and stopped there for lunch, I can't wait to get back for hiking and mountain biking! We cruised into Durham around 8pm, but unloading the trailer seemed like an insurmountable task at that point, so we went to dinner at a Elmo's (a local diner) and went to bed! The first night was spent on Sarah (new roomie)'s air mattress - surprisingly comfortable! - and so ended my fun, safe, memorable, and hopefully last drive across the country!