So, after bringing my sisters to school on the morning of the 19th - my mother and I drove down to Stanford (bad traffic... somewhat) We arrived around 12:30 - whereas practically everyone had been there since 8 am. Anyway, the RAs and other people apparently knew our names when we got there because of the freshman facebook. I was disappointed when I found my room assignment to be on the first floor (I wanted 2nd floor) but pretty quickly found myself to be quite fortunate. First floor rooms are bigger and have higher ceilings. One wall is almost all window. Also, I didn't have to drag things up the stairs :-)

My roommate left me a gift from Maxim's from the Paris airport - it was very nice of her! Her name is Austin and she is from Virginia. We both speak French and run... So, we woke at 5:30 am on Friday (Thursday was spent hurrying from open house to open house and opening convocation etc) and RAN campus drive plus a little more, since we got lost a bit :-) After attending many many somber presentations on Friday (What happens if you break the Honor Code, the Fundamental Standard, get drunk, get involved in random sexual encounters...) the STANFORD BAND <-crazy people came over to the front of my dorm and played, bringing with them everyone from the east side of campus. After they were done, all of us in my dorm joined them, and we ran (race pace cross country style*) around the campus clockwise, stopping at each dorm while the band played the call to join the party/fun. Eventually we ended up in the main quad. And then we went fountain hopping at midnight. It was INSANE! but fun.

I've spent the few days helping some people set up ethernet connections - turns out word spread fast about who's a techie and who's not. This morning I woke up utterly sore - try running distance (4 miles) in the morning, and then doing sprint like races in the middle of the night.... after not having ran anything more than 3 miles all summer (yes coach, I'm guilty)

Perhaps the best thing, was our book discussion. My dorm was assigned optional summer reading. Being the overachievers we were, most of us read one of the two books, or both. :-) My group of 6 went from Grapes of Wrath, to meaning of life, to existentialism, to what is logic, to what is instinct... and politics, and lose-lose situations.. These people are utterly AMAZING! In all of high school, I think I have only met a few who are as knowledgeable and articulate as these people here.

Have a beautiful day!

*maybe it wasn't a true race - but 4 years of cross country and track have conditioned me to race/keep up - when hundreds of people are charging... stampede style. oh, btw, we could all tell the soccer and cross country athletes from everyone else when we were running.. just see who got there first :-)