Unpack Attack

It was our first day at Penn today! Class starts tomorrow, but we moved in today.

Julia and I were packed and ready to go, and we saw the rest of the cohort waiting outside the elevator, so we waited with them. And waited. And waited. Finally, a maid took pity on us and took us down in an "employees only" elevator. We walked our bags down to the Penn campus, checked in, and pulled our bags into our dorms, saying goodbye to Mr. Hillyer, who was wearing the same shirt he wore at Zachary's when we first met (so many emotions!). Coincidentally, Julia and I ended up in the same room. But, fortunately, we wouldn’t have to miss out on the college experience of having a roommate, because our door had three names: Julia, Julia, and Maayan.

Julia and I unpacked while we waited for our mystery Maayan to appear. The cohort decided on a time to meet to have brunch, and I decided that I could write our roommate a note and get her chocolate as a greeting present in twenty minutes. I took it as a challenge to race to a place that sold candy (I ended up sprinting for ten minutes, so yeah, I have been getting exercise, Dad). 

The chocolate that I ran
to get, and the note
Maayan was replying to

We met the helpful people in the front office, then headed off to lunch at Baby Blues Barbecue. Most of us got pulled pork sandwiches (I was one of them), and then we headed back. When we reached the room, we were greeted by Maayan (who was in the middle of responding to our note; she was going to explore the Penn campus) and her parents. We talked for a long time to introduce ourselves, and Maayan (she told us that a lot of people had trouble remembering how to pronounce her name, so she gave us the memory device "my-yawn") told us about herself (she's taking Social Justice too), and we did the same, also explaining the ILC. We touched on a few other subjects, and we talked for long enough for Julia and I to be sure that Maayan was going to be a good roommate before she left to walk around Penn. Julia and I struggled in a battle against the complicated Penn Wi-Fi setup, but eventually passed through the stream of antivirus installations and passwords to reach a point where we had internet. 

We ate at a surprisingly nice dining hall, then returned and played "getting to know you" games with other Penn Summer Discovery kids, like two truths and a lie, telephone, and speed-friending. Speed-friending, for those of you who have never heard of this, is when you're given a short amount of time to have a conversation with someone. It was basically speed-dating (they even paired girls up with guys) with the formula: what's your name, where are you from, what course are you taking, what do you do in your free time, bye. I found only one guy, Blaze, who was taking Social Justice. I've heard the class has fifty people, though, so maybe the class is just mostly girls. 

The "making friends" session ended, and I joined a group of people to play volleyball for a while before I went back to my room. Our dorm room has a main room and two side rooms, and Julia and I are sharing a side room. Gwennie and Maayan hung out with Julia and I for a while before we went to bed. 

Tomorrow is the first day! I'm so ready, I can't wait for tomorrow to come!