First Day of Classes Galore

The day started out with me waking up at around 7:30 getting ready for the first day of classes. I was excited but a bit nervous on what was to come however I saw the homework load the day before and it made me a little bit more scared on what to expect. By the time I had gotten ready I didn't really end up having much time to grab a lot for breakfast so I picked up two muffins and some water and started rushing to class. I had to put my class into google maps however I ended up getting lost along the way because the way to my class was blocked off due to construction so I had to take a detour. I got lost again when I got to the building (I found out that they apparently wrote the wrong side of the building for my class) luckily there were people who knew the way to help me out.

The first day of my class was more of a tutorial. The first hour went by with the first week professor telling us about plagiarism and why we shouldn't do it and the consequences if we do and things pertaining to that. We also received the details on how our class would go over the next few weeks with four weekly essays making up the bulk of our grade (80%) and class participation and a final group project making up the rest. My main professor also introduced us to the general idea of policy making and showed us multiple examples of why it's never easy to agree on passing a law. She ended off the first half of the class by taking our headshot and telling us that she does it so that if we ever become president of the United States someday she would have evidence for being the reason why.

We then headed to the library so the TA could teach us how to use the database system. It was a bit complicated to watch at first but since I'm used to Contra Costa College's database system and the amount of lectures I received on it then I'm pretty sure it should be straight forward. After the library tutorial, we received homework questions to answer based on it.

At the end of the tutorial I met up with my group for the final project where we had to analyze a problem and create a thirty minute presentation on it along with a bill to address the problem. Our problem deals with the influx of drug overdose that is happening in North Dakota at an over 125% up rise in drug overdose related deaths in the state. It's the highest up rise in the country so it was a good problem to analyze.

After class I started to head back to my dorm. I had a ton of homework assigned and it was pretty much what I did for the rest of the day. I was super surprised by it but also kinda bummed out because I wasn't able to attend to Target and eating out with Mike and the rest of my cohort. I guess it's just another day in the life of a college student.

Gonna get back to my homework and rest. I'm curious to see how the second day of classes go!

~ A New Day, New Friends~

Today was my second day at Cornell. I stayed up later the previous night blogging and putting together a Cornell picture. So I woke up at 7 AM and I decoded I was still tired so would sleep for another hour. I woke up again around 8 and decided to go visit Kachi in her room, she was sleeping so I woke her up and told her it was breakfast time and she said she wanted to sleep longer and I agreed so I sharing the bed with her and waking up at 10:30. Breakfast ended at 10:30 but neither of us was that hungry. I usually don't eat breakfast at home so I' m getting used to it little by little.

We just took a long time getting ready and than went to go get lunch. I ate these tasty cheesy breadsticks which was honestly the highlight of my meal. I usually drink this cantaloupe infused water which is really good, they have a variety of infused water. They changed up the water so I just filled up my water bottle with the fountain water next to my dorm which I actually really like because its cold. Maybe because I'm used to tap water? I don't know but I just save myself the money instead of buying water bottles and use the fountain which is good. After lunch we went to the Bear Necessity store located inside the same building where they sell a little bit of everything from milk to detergent. So if I need anything I will just go there.

After I came back to my dorm and went on a scavenger hunt with my unit and we just looked at different buildings and they gave us clues. I didn't really pay attention to finding the building I actually made more friends in my floor and got closer. Which I think was the same for everyone. The main focus of the activity was really to bond with everyone. After a while everyone agreed to come back to the dorms because the sun was just beating down on us and the humidity was difficult to work with.

I came back to the dorm to just hang with people from my unit and do some prereading for my inspiring leadership class. Which just consisted of chapter one which was about what a leader consists of and how to become a better leader--which they refer to in The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership. 

After I finished reading I went to the dining hall for some dinner. Today’s meal was pasta which was really good and the sauce was amazing.

After the dinner I went along with Kachi to the club signing activity. Which was held in a lounge and I signed up for hiking, movie, leadership, and board game club. Some of the clubs conflict with each other so whatever I am in the mood to do that day I'll decide. Yet, I am most interested in hiking club.

After the club signing Kachi and I left to go to Bear Necessities to go get some ping pong balls and a Frisbee. Frisbee because we all forgot to bring one and ping pong balls because our lounge doesn't have any. Then we made a stop at Insomnia Cookie and WOW is it good I tell you. 

We then went to go play ping pong in the lounge. Some people ended up coming down after seeing ping pong and I had a mini stereo so I had put on music. So I ended up making a lot of friends there who actually liked the same music as me and they were all super nice. I'm really happy I bought ping pong balls and had that stereo. 

After lots of fun I went to go take a shower because the stalls were empty. The bathroom and showers are connected so when you walk in there are shower stalls with curtain doors and if you keep walking forward a sink is at the end and the toilets are there. 

I went back to my dorm and kept reading a little for my class. Then there was check-in where we have to go downstairs and they check our IDs to make sure we’re in the building by a specific time. I told my roommate Jenny about Insomnia Cookie and we both started to crave it so we ordered delivery to the dorms. It's open till 3 AM for delivery which is really late, but anyways I'm going to go get my cookie.

Day Two of Cornell, and the Last Day Before Class

Today I woke up at around 10ish. It was probably the first day I got to sleep in since I left California. I stayed a little bit in bed to check some emails from my professor. They sent a lot of detail about my course and the things I would need to begin reading for the next day. 

After briefly looking through the things they had sent, I decided that it would be a better time to leave it until later on in the day. I decided to head out to the RPCC though I arrived a bit late however I did make it in time for the beginning of lunch (which starts pretty early at Cornell). So I managed to fill myself with some lunch time foods and refill my water bottle and then head to the Bear Necessities store to buy more crates of water for my room. 

After putting away my water crates, I had headed off to meet with my unit adviser and other girls in my unit. I was in charge of marking off where we needed to head off to next which meant I would have the paper with the list of buildings on it. It was great because I was able to familiarize myself with the buildings. And see many buildings I hadn't seen before. I also got the time to socialize with more people about where they come from and discuss the differences of where we came from which was pretty cool and enlightening to hear about. 

After the tour, we had headed to dinner at the RPCC. I noticed that Cornell's lunch kitchen is very similar to the dinner kitchen and that they have very similar foods from day to day. However the food is great so I'm not complaining yet. I had refilled my water bottle again and then after quickly eating dinner we headed to the Cornell Club/Activity Rush happening at Mary Donlon Hall, which I was the most excited to hear about.

The Activity Rush featured about 10 or 12 clubs we would be able to sign up for at our stay at Cornell. So I decided to sign up for Diversity club (club about talking about diversity and the differences that come with it. And I'm really excited about this club to meet people who are interested in things I am interested in pertaining to diversity), Leadership club (an interesting club about the mafia and how the leadership roles take place in it), Movie club (a movie watching club), Hiking club (a club to the the wonders of Ithaca), Dodge ball club (club about playing dodge ball) and board game club (a club dedicated to playing board games and meeting people). I probably can't go to all of these clubs but I really hope to go to most of them as for the fact that I REALLY love being in clubs. Even if I have the slightest interest in it I still try to sign up and see how I can learn something, meet people with similar interests, or have fun. So I'm really excited about this.

After the activity fair, Diana and I decided to head out to the closer part of town. The town was under a lot of construction but it was a very skinny road that was both commercial and residential. It also was a very good view of  the trees in Ithaca. It was only about 20 minutes away but we wanted to pick up a Frisbee and a few ping pong balls to finally get the chance to play ping pong. Also, we saw it as the chance to check out the Insomniac, the Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich shop that is similar to Cream, the one we have in the Bay Area. It was very good and had a lot more Ice Cream in the cookie compared to Cream however it was pricier than Cream. So it's overall a trade off. They both taste very similar. 

When we arrived back, we were able to finally play Ping Pong and relax a little bit before heading upstairs to get to work on reading the material for our classes. Overall it was a great day and I'm excited to start classes tomorrow.

Best Second Day of Anything

Maybe the title is an exaggeration, but today definitely felt a whole lot better than yesterday did. Despite having made some new friends at the Ice Cream Social, thanks to the floor meeting my unit had the night before I befriended two girls across the hall from me, Paula and Sami. They're both from Florida, which is super cool.

I woke up and knocked on Sami's door to see if she wanted to go get breakfast together. I also asked Serena, whom I had met because she left her door open and I sort of just popped in yesterday. We headed to the RPCC and we met up with 2 other girls Sami was friends with, Perri and Eva. While getting food I found Paula and she asked where I was sitting. Who would've known that this morning I'd find two girls I got along with so well. I got a light breakfast of potatoes and pancakes. Probably not the healthiest combination. They have omelettes too and although the line is bearable I chose not to wait in it.

View from the bridge

After breakfast we walked to the other side of campus, in attempt to see if Day Hall was open. Unfortunately it wasn't, so we walked around a little more. Because the day before I got lost I had walked across the bridge with a better view of Beebee Lake and the waterfall to the gorge. I led Sami and Paula to it, and throughout the walk we went into the Human Ecology building, and it was pretty neat.

Staircase inside the Human Ecology building

We knew there was a scavenger hunt at 12:45 PM, and since it was about 11 AM, we went back to the RPCC for lunch. Yesterday I didn't make it in time for lunch, so I was happy that I'd be getting three meals today. During lunch is when things started getting better. Sami and I sat down with Lily, another girl that Sami knew, and gradually more people started joining us. A girl named Madeline from D.C. asked if it was okay to sit down and of course we said yes. Then Carolyn from our unit sat down too. Not too long after Sami saw a boy, Liam, sitting at the table next to us by himself, and as she got up for seconds she invited him to our table. A few minutes afterwards, I was getting ice cream when I saw another guy, Tommy, sitting by himself, so I asked if he was waiting for anyone and invited him over too. They were actually both from New Jersey and live about 15 minutes away from each other. It was a really good time, and by the last few minutes Paula came and joined us too. We decided that we'd meet up for dinner after all of our scavenger hunts.

Inside Ithaca Mall, exit from Target

The scavenger hunt was mostly going around and searching for certain buildings around campus. It was about an hour long and we ended up way by the lower end of campus, almost by College Town.

A friend of ours, Mieke, was coming from the Starbucks and we took a spontaneous trip to the Ithaca Mall! Sami was hesitant because she's a very analytical person, but she joined us anyway. We didn't explore all of Ithaca Mall, it was mostly a Target run for all that Mieke needed and some snacks for us. Mieke is going to be here for 6 weeks because she's doing architecture, so she has a mini fridge so we found it proper to buy some gogurt.

The bus ride back to the dorms was nice, and it was almost 5 PM by then and the activities fair was at 5:15 PM in the Donlon Lounge, so we took a break from all the walking today and had some time in our dorms. The Donlon Lounge was packed with summer college students trying to join many different things: yearbook, Summer Times, soccer, volleyball. dodgeball, hiking, board gaming, and just about anything. Someone from summer college staff tried to start a spontaneous dodge ball game and basically failed.

I found Shuxin in the midst of all the commotion, so she, Sami, Paula, Tommy, Liam, and I went out to the picnic table right outside of Donlon and talked for quite a while until we all got hungry. In between that some guys sat down and talked to us for a bit; they were alright. We all shared interesting things about each other, like how much Liam is into politics. Also, the crazy things that have happened when Sami baby sat and Tommy slipping while cliff diving once. 

We went to dinner probably 15 minutes before it was supposed to close, and stayed there for a whole hour. The sun was starting to set, and some of us have classes that require a lot of reading so we took off. The 2nd floor of Donlon was supposed to have hot chocolate so Paula and Shuxin tried to go get some, but they were out. That's when I heard some slapping on the table and saw playing cards. Some girls were playing Egyptian Rat Screw! I learned that game through some classmates at Middle College, and Shuxin knew it too. We were both really excited and asked if we could play.

After being all sweaty and tired, Paula and I walked back to our dorms. The day felt very long, but the good kind. I did a lot, in my opinion, especially walking. Paula and Sami are taking the same course so I won't see as much of them once class starts, but we made a group chat so we should be fine. I'm looking forward to how tomorrow is going to go and first day of class.

Exploring the Campus....Again

Musical Stairs (stairs leading to this)

There was a mandatory scavenger hunt I had to attend at 1:00 PM. My floor did it together as a group, but I think a lot of people went around by themselves for the scavenger hunt. You had to figure out a riddle and then go to the place the riddle was talking about. After arriving at the place you had to take a picture and at every destination you needed a different pose. We went to the two main libraries, Cornell store, the bell tower, Gannett Health Services, RPCC (our dining hall), Balch Hall (dorm), and the musical stairs. The only place I hadn't been before was the musical stairs and it's become one of my favorite places on campus. The stairs are called the musical stairs because when you kick a rock across the ground it makes different noises on the different colored tiles. It was really cool and I can totally see myself just running up the stairs to kick the rocks in between classes. The scavenger hunt for my dorm was scheduled at 12:00 PM (right in the middle of lunch) and we took a while walking so my friend, Lily, and I had to walk really fast back to RPCC, but we made it on time. 

The other day Mike told us that living in college dorms with communal bathrooms gets you over public bathrooms really fast. I was skeptical at first and completely didn't believe him, but he was absolutely right. The bathrooms here in Ithaca don't have the paper seat covers that are in most public bathrooms in California and so for the past week I have been just placing toilet paper on top of the toilet seat as a replacement. I got really tired of it today and finally just sat on the toilet. I was super grossed out on some level, but I also just didn't care. 

At 5:30 PM I went to my dorm's lobby for club sign-ups. There were a bunch of tables with posters explaining what the club does and sign-up papers. It was extremely packed when I went and I had to work my way through lots of people. It was terrible, but I got to sign up for the hiking, leadership, board game, and movie clubs. Right after I saw Joceline and I joined her groups of friends. They were a really fun and interactive bunch with interesting stories to tell. We just sat outside and talked for a while underneath a tree. The conversation went from crazy dorm mates to Donald Trump. After an hour of just talking we finally decided to get dinner. 

Today's lunch and dinner were much better than yesterday’s. After thinking about it some more the food at Cornell is actually really good. They do seem to have a little bit of every type of food. There's always fruit and a salad bar too if you are feeling healthy that day. I ate pasta with meat, a garlic knot, some noodle thing with beef, sushi, and ice-cream. After finishing our dinner, we just sat there and talked for another hour. It was super cool of the workers to not kick us out because it was already after the closing hours. 

Joceline, Paola (a new friend), and I went back to my floor hoping to make it back in time for the hot chocolate, but unfortunately we were too late. After feeling sad for a little bit we saw these girls playing Egyptian war, a card game where you basically slap down on certain cards and try to accumulate all the cards. We joined the game by slapping down on certain cards and after about half an hour I was able to accumulate all the cards and win. It was super intense and fun because we were all going crazy every time someone slapped back in. 

Joceline and Paola had to go back to their dorm at 9:00 PM and the rest of us went up to the third floor to eat cupcakes. There were chocolate cupcakes and lots of people decorating with different colored icing when we got there. Some people made some super cool designs. I kept mine pretty simple because I'm not a huge fan of icing, but it was really fun meeting all the people and talking to them while icing my cupcake. It's been a really long day and I'm super excited for classes tomorrow. 

My Cupcake Design

How the Room Looks

BEFORE WALKING IN

I have the room 4343 which is on the 4th floor of South Balch Hall. Before I even walked into the room, I noticed how it was a room that was in a way shaped in a box and it was a corner room at the end of the hallway. My door was opposite another girl's room who looked to be a single but also might be a single with a shared bathroom because she was the first of many rows of doors leading to different rooms. However because mine was cut off from the rest of the rows I realize there is no dorm that is directly next to or connected to my own dorm room. I also noticed that the shower room was a few steps away from my dorm. So close that I would see the door just standing outside of my room meaning that the shower area is in a very convenient place for me. So far I feel great about the location of my dorm. Another thing I noticed about the rooms outside of my dorm is that most of them are single rooms with shared bathrooms. And I had expected most of the rooms to be doubles. 

WALKING IN

Before walking into the room I see my room number (4343) and how outside my room the brown door has my name tag on it with a sticker from Mario. The door has a modern day keyhole, a vintage keyhole and a small golden doorknob. The door as a peep hole to see who is knocking as well.

Walking into the dorm I immediately see a bed pushed against the back white wall that is at least two and a half feet off the ground with a navy blue mattress that is carried by a metal bed frame. I'm a very tall person at about 5'10 and I am able to lie down all the way on the mattress so it's definitely tall enough for people around that size. I then look to see on the edge of the bed facing away from the wall, they supplied me with a pillow covered with a pillow case, two bed sheets, and a white blanket that isn't heavy yet isn't very light either. It has fabric that reminds me of a towel if that gives a better picture. The blanket is probably made from wool because it's a pretty rough feeling blanket. All of these items are folded and lying on top of the pillow except for a white long cloth that is skinnier than the bed. I'm not really sure exactly what is is but I'm thinking its maybe a little extra half blanket to put on us while we study? Or maybe an extra blanket if we happen to get cold at night. To the right of the bed is a brown wooden nightstand.

On the right side of the wall (from the view of the rooms entrance) there are three old wooden brown doors with very small golden knobs. Two out of three of these doors has a very vintage keyhole on them. These doors all resemble the door that leads inside the room.

The first door on the left is a shelf closet with 7 smaller brown shelves that seem as if they haven't been touched in a while, one middle white big shelf that could probably hold a carry-on luggage, and one medium shelf that could probably hold a large purse.

The next door led to my sink and this was the door that didn't have the vintage keyhole. On the back of the sink door there is a giant full body mirror and on the inside there is a white small sink which is big enough to put a small pouch on top of, two towelette holders on opposite sides of the sink room, an overhead light where you pull a string and it comes on, two opposite purse hangers, an electrical outlet with two ports, and a mirror in front of you that can open and when you open it you end up seeing two smaller shelves and one bigger one.

The third door led to a closet. On the back of the door was a medium sized mirror. The closet is able to be walked into and it has 6 coat hangers in total with three on opposite sides, a long horizontal pole that can be used to hang things (it did not come with hangers) and two shelves above that pole. I feel like this door contained the biggest room in area out of the three rooms.

On the front wall of the room next to the door there was a single brown wooden desk with 3 different small drawers in the front. There is also a big black lamp, a big white fan, two body towels and one face towel on the desk. Above the desk there is a medium sized mirror that is hanging, Underneath the desk there is three Ethernet outputs, one trash can and one recycling bin.

On the left side of the wall there are three older style windows and heavy cream colored curtains covering them both. There is an air vent that does not work and beside the third window there is a bookshelf with three shelf areas and a bottom half that can be opened to store more books. The room is all white with the bottom 6 inches of the wall painted a light brown color. The floor is a brown carpet.

I counted a total of 6 electrical outputs including the two in the bathroom. A pair is behind the bed and the other pair is next to the desk. 

One other thing worth mentioning is that when one turns off the overhead light the room gets EXTREMELY dark. Most people are used to having a little light glowing in the room somehow or it not being so dark that one can't just get up and go to the bathroom or check their phone without turning on the light but with the light situation here it's like once the lights go off you WILL NOT be able to see.

BATHROOMS:

There are two doors leading to the bathrooms. 

When you enter through the door on the left, you first encounter the toilet stalls. There are about 4 toilet stalls in one row, and if you enter the next room area, which are where the sinks are, there is one more toilet stall. There are two sinks yet I find it strange how only one sink has a mirror. When you go to the next room, there are two rows of opposite showers and there are about 5 in both rows. The showers are spacey and have two hangers and one area to put down things like clothes and a pouch. The whole shower is covered by a shower curtain, but they aren't 100% private on the sides. I would definitely suggest getting a small pouch and a robe though.

THINGS I RECOMMEND YOU BRING:

- Nightlight!!! (seriously it gets really dark)

-Robe (really useful)

-Shower pouch

-Shower cap (depending on your hair type. This hasn't been recommended by other ILCers in the past but for people with kinkier and curlier hair types like I do I really recommend bringing a shower cap everywhere because NO ONE provides it and they do not sell it at the campus store. You really don't wanna leave that behind)

Dinner with Chicago Undergrads

So ,when we went to the dinner at Lou Malnati's, we met with two Chicago undergrads: Simon, who is a rising UChicago junior, as is his friend Courtney.  Simon is also an ILC alum—having attended Columbia University while with the ILC. They both supplied very good information about the school.

One of the most helpful pieces of advice supplied was from Courtney when she stated how UChicago is very helpful with their financial aid. Because she explained how she was a borderline family. A borderline family is someone just barely pushes the line for being eligible for financial aid. This is a very unfortunate position to be in because the college treats it as if you are able to pay for the college yet someone with a few thousand or few hundred less would be considered as someone that would be able to get help. And a lot of families at this cut off line are very stuck and I myself am a borderline family as well and this is something that I always worry about because most colleges have a certain cut off line. And even though I barely exceed the cut off line, I know that there is no way I would be able to pay for college. This is what happened at first with Courtney when she applied for financial aid and didn't get it. However when she went to the UChicago financial aid office they listened to her story and supplied her with financial aid so that definitely shows that UChicago is an understanding and middle class friendly school. This is one of the main factors that makes me want to apply. They also have a lot to give judging by their huge endowment of 7.55 billion dollars.

Also, Simon, who was a public policy major, was interning for the mayor thanks to UChicago, I find it very cool how UChicago was able to supply him with such a higher up internship and especially in a city in Chicago which is the third biggest city in the country, working for the person that makes the rules of the city is definitely impressive and there's no way that the experience won't get him good offers. UChicago, because of its location near the downtown, is able to offer a lot of jobs and internships for people. More than many other universities in cities that aren't as big.

Simon also explained how the school spirit at the school isn't as great as most others. Sports aren't a big deal at the school like a school like Northwestern. Also, they said that their Greek Life was existent, but not prominent. However, Courtney wanted us to remember that it is growing and has the potential to get much bigger.