College Day 4

Last night I got back from being in Steven's suite all day and everyone in my suite was chillin with each other and was glad to see me finally. They said to invite them (the Galathea 400 suite) over sometime. Then my room mate Kevin Park had the idea to visit the other suites in our Meteor building. So we went from floor to floor and met fricken everyone. Usually we'd get a few people to come mingling with us. We started on the top (4th floor. there are 2 suites per floor btw) and worked our way down. By the time we finished floor 2 I sneaked away because I didn't want to get off schedule and when the group gets unwieldily large you can't really meet people anymore. So I aslumbered at 12 something but my roommate didn't sleep until 4am. Supposedly after they met the whole suite they all came in to MY suite to just hang and talk. Lucky for me I have [effective] earplugs! Well tonight we did the same thing but earlier and we went much more quickly through the rooms so we'd have time to get to Galathea and even some of Discovery. They assembled in the lounge and did stuff like take a group picture, but no one knew what they were doing and it got boring quickly so I left. Well earlier today I went to the last of two Strides welcome week events. Twas less entertaining this time without Lauren or Zach or Zach's friend Andrei. But I met a graduate student who lives off campus and is bored with the married couples with whom he lives. Then met an electrical engineer and talked to him some, but mostly I just said "oh that's cool" because I couldn't understand half of what he said. Then I had to get over to my computer science and engineering orientation at 12:30. The building was not difficult to locate on Google Maps. I saw and sat next to Andrei, who is majoring in computer engineering. I'm going to run with him tomorrow, and I invited Lauren and Zach who will come too. (Strides isn't running as a group tomorrow.) After the orientation there was free food. (Oh just FYI free food is not free ... it's included - in your fees somewhere. So you need to eat it to get your money's worth. Some resident dean explained that to us. I hope she realized that "to get your money's worth" is NOT a REASON to eat food, either that or I hope she does not vote, which I suppose I'll be doing soon.) Well in the snakey line that I waited in I met the 3 guys behind me. One of them also passed Comp Sci AB with a 5 in HS. He is Scott and his last name is too complicated to remember. I ate so much food there (it was free and all); I hadn't eaten all day and it was 3:30pm. Ate so much I took care of breakfast and lunch at the same time, and then took care of dinner too. Some Goldfish from the room and I was set. At the CSE (Computer Science and Engineering) orientation, I listened to the advisors and I think I'll talk to them about either skipping CSE 12 or dropping CSE 20, because I want to only have 3 classes, which is what they strongly recommend. Also I need to consider studying abroad so hiring companies see that I can adapt to new situations. I also need to register my bike tomorrow between the hours of 11 and 2. Fortunately there are no dumb mandatory welcome week events tomorrow so I should be free to do whatever the goose I want. Oh there was this huge convocation dinner thing but I already had my share of free food and it started before the CSE orientation ended. Then Revelle had this 'Best Night of your Life on Campus' night or something. They had dancing crazy people and a hypnotist.

See here is the thing about college. Ohhhh college is where you are open and convivial and agreeable and active and you participate and get involved blahblahblah. So that means when dumb people dance for you you have to scream in approbation every time a clown touches his nose and it lights up. The truth is I saved a lot of time and energy by NOT watching the hypnotist or making decorative cookies. This energy is transferable to tomorrow where I have free time to interact with people without the help of a hypnotist who can convince people to pretend ... yeah. Also, my room mates think I'm cool for NOT being there on the first day and having better things to do. I can see it in their eyes. I know someone that is trying too hard to change themselves and be confident but just isn't very good at it. Some times people look so stupid I barf right in front of them and it's really embarrassing. Most people here are really cool though. I like how I've learned to be critical and say not what I am expected to say but what I actually think. When we were touring SD, Old Uncle Gramps told me that it's important to make it very clear what you want when I asked how often two people do something that they wouldn't otherwise do just because they thought the other wanted to do it. Something else that helps me improve my social sillz is to picture myself on camera doing the thing that I'm doing right now and imagining what others would think. Of late I have felt pretty stable; it's kinda koo.