Let's start off by saying my housing is great. It's called Shirley Apartments. I share an apartment with one other guy, and we have a living room, bedroom, kitchen, and private bathroom (with a tub/shower!). Plus some great people live there. The only thing is, we are furthest from campus (a fifteen minute walk made better by busses and shuttles). Oh, and there is no AC, so I carry a fan wherever I go.
Which reminds me, my roommate Eddie has an interesting method of coping with the heat. It only lasts for a short time, but apparently refrigerated clothes are very cool (pun intended).
So it was an eventful week of orientation (fun things, boring things, info things, free things, etc). Luckily we all were given umbrellas, cause it rained the whole time. There was also Convocation, which was amusing cause each school gets up and cheers (the CS students did some robot dance, the arts claimed they were pretty every day, Tepper business students said we would all work for them in the end - all cleverly put into cheers of course). I knew I was in the the right place when my school got up and claimed we were more well-rounded than the others.
And at the end of Orientation, housing groups band together to form teams to battle in House Wars. Points are awarded at stations where teams compete at watermelon passing, trivia, limbo, etc. Oakland housing didn't win - still fun though.
So there was still a weekend left before classes and the upperclassmen started arriving. There are always games going on on the cut, so I joined a wicked game of dodgeball - with water balloons (side note - water balloons is two words, make it one word and spell-check wants it to be watermelons, which is an interesting concept in this context). Then I played some volleyball (and I play with these guys whenever I see them), and some soccer. I hadn't planned on playing, so I played in just my jeans (sandals and collared shirt off). Two guys had cleats, and some other guys had shoes, but I still wreaked havoc. I only decided to quit when my other foot started to bleed (the other one was scraped up earlier). So yeah, I played soccer till my feet bled!
CMU is a great place. Yesterday I got out of class and noticed every tree on the cut was covered in twine - it seems the archies (architecture majors) had a assignment to makes "spaces." Sometimes I'm walking around campus, and it strikes me just how happy I am. Then I feel guilty, cause I know my family is probably missing me (?) and I'm putting distance between my Cherry Hill friends, who seem to be having a worse time of it.
We have had some fun since classes started. We've had a two-for one bomb scare (two buildings simultaneously threatened - it was fake). And a water main near Shirley broke yesterday, which took out the fresh water supply to most of Pittsburgh. So there was a run on the bottled water. And the school buildings lost AC and the ability to make coffee. Luckily it was repaired by around midnight, so I was able to shower (with absolutely no hot water). This morning I woke up, preped myself, and then got a message on my phone saying the water was perfectly fine, but just in case, I shouldn't drink it brush my teeth with it (oops, too late). Right now CMU is giving water away - bottles, and gallon jugs.
Oh, I got my new baby - a MacBook (with free printer and iPod - iPod now on eBay). As it turns out, it also has a bad battery (I don't know exactly what a cycle count is, but mine is 8, and it is supposed to be >300). It only lasts for a few hours. So Apple is sending me a new one (yay Apple). Speaking of my new computer, I retrofitted the briefcase Aunt Caro and Uncle Gordon sent me (thanks for the food too) with some styrofoam to make it perfect for protecting my precious.
Speaking of food, I have this meal plan which gives me 22 meals and $78 of campus dining every two weeks. Since I'm usually don't eat breakfast, this is perfect. Plus, every two weeks I get to splurge on food with my remaining food money or else it disappears (no food rollover).
Hmm, what else? I got this awesome Princess Bride poster (which anyone whose watched that movie can appreciate).
Last, and by far most important (my parents will be hearing this for the first time), for the time being I've decided to stay an Information Systems major (my original plan was to switch to Computer Science). From what I've seen, I think it is just a better fit.
Signing off for now,
Chris J. Shull
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