Another Auspicious Begining

This morning I woke up at 7:15 prepared for a long and eventful day ahead. Today was the day that we move into our dorms, so it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I finished packing and left the hotel room for the last time. We were among the first people to arrive at the Quadrangle, where we are living for the next three weeks. Outside of the Quad, we signed in and were given our keys, our identification cards, and various other Penn-related paraphernalia.

The view from our dorm room.

After locating our respective dorm rooms, the cohort went to have one last lunch together at Baby Blue's BBQ. Traditional Southern food is rare in the Bay Area so today's lunch was a totally new culinary experience for me. I really enjoyed my fried shrimp sandwich and fried green tomatoes. (Almost everything was fried.) After lunch we went to the bookstore and to the nearby CVS to pick up the last few things we needed and then it was time to say goodbye to John.

After saying our goodbyes, we returned to our rooms. Julia and I are still living in the same room together, along with another Social Justice Research Academy Student, Mayaan Rose. Initially, we had a lot of trouble setting up our WiFi. However, we eventually prevailed. Fortunately, we had a lot of unstructured free time today for everyone to get situated in their new accommodations, so it didn't matter that it took an hour to get our computers connected to the WiFi. We also had time to briefly wander the campus and look for the building where class will be held tomorrow.

My room, and awesome roommates

After we finished moving in, it was time for dinner. Dinner was held in the Findlay Dining Commons, which is huge, but still not large enough to accommodate the entire population of the Penn Summer Discoveries Program. Julia, Gwennie, Mayaan, and I had to eat the majority of our dinner while sitting on a windowsill because there were not enough tables for everyone. (We eventually got a table.) After walking back from the dining commons there were several icebreakers, where I got to know a lot of the other students in the program. After the icebreakers, I was feeling tired so I went back to my room, where I hung out with Julia, Gwennie and Mayaan.

I am very excited for tomorrow, when our class begins. I have been waiting for this course to start for more than 6 months and I can hardly believe it is finally happening.